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shy
Crypt Keeper
 
Australia
1991 Posts |
 Posted - 28 January 2004 : 10:55:22 AM
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Parents now have the power to choose the sex of their children. But as technology answers prayers, it also raises some troubling questions
Sharla Miller of Gillette, Wyo., always wanted a baby girl, but the odds seemed stacked against her. Her husband, Shane, is one of three brothers, and Sharla and her five siblings (four girls, two boys) have produced twice as many males as females. After the Millers' first son, Anthony, was born in 1991, along came Ashton, now 8, and Alec, 4. Each one was a gift, says Sharla, but the desire for a girl never waned. "I'm best friends with my mother," she says. "I couldn't get it out of my mind that I wanted a daughter." Two years ago Sharla, who had her fallopian tubes tied after Alec's birth, began looking into adopting a baby girl. In the course of her Internet research, she stumbled upon a Web site for the Fertility Institutes in Los Angeles, headed by Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg, where she learned about an in vitro fertilization technique called preimplantation genetic diagnosis. By creating embryos outside the womb, then testing them for gender, PGD could guarantee—with almost 100 percent certainty—the sex of her baby. Price tag: $18,480, plus travel. Last November Sharla's eggs and Shane's sperm were mixed in a lab dish, producing 14 healthy embryos, seven male and seven female. Steinberg transferred three of the females into Sharla's uterus, where two implanted successfully. If all goes well, the run of Miller boys will end in July with the arrival of twin baby girls. "I have three wonderful boys," says Sharla, "but since there was a chance I could have a daughter, why not?"
The brave new world is definitely here. After 25 years of staggering advances in reproductive medicine—first test-tube babies, then donor eggs and surrogate mothers—technology is changing baby-making in a whole new way. No longer can science simply help couples have babies, it can help them have the kind of babies they want. Choosing gender may obliterate one of the fundamental mysteries of procreation, but for people who have grown accustomed to taking 3-D ultrasounds of fetuses, learning a baby's sex within weeks of conception and scheduling convenient delivery dates, it's simply the next logical step. That gleeful exclamation, "It's a boy!" or "It's a girl!" may soon just be a quaint reminder of how random births used to be.
Shy
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Friends will help you move. Real friends will help you move bodies!
shy@shyscyberchamber.com
ICQ : 41364914
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Tiffs
Ghost
 
Australia
108 Posts |
Posted - 12 February 2004 : 10:05:35 AM
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So what happens if everyone starts deciding to have girl babies? does this mean that even the geeks of the world will get lucky and shows like Average Joe will become more the normal?
Tiffs XXX
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Like... wow! |
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shy
Crypt Keeper
Australia
1991 Posts |
Posted - 12 February 2004 : 1:48:20 PM
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I am not really sure that this would happen Tiffs. I would assume that the ratio of couples wanting male and female babies would be roughly the same. Therefore not threatening our male/female ration in the population.
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Tiffs
Ghost
Australia
108 Posts |
Posted - 18 February 2004 : 2:23:13 PM
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have i upset you shy?
Tiffs XXX
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Like... wow! |
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shy
Crypt Keeper
Australia
1991 Posts |
Posted - 22 February 2004 : 8:46:03 PM
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No
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nylorac
Corpse
USA
8 Posts |
Posted - 13 March 2004 : 06:12:09 AM
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Technology is wonderful as well as horrible. Do we know when enough is enough? I don't know if we do, we always want more... I am afraid of what will be.
 Is my question even valid?
We must carry on, searching, discovering, inventing,isn't that right? Why wouldn't we, but we will go to far with somethings and will not be able to go back. |
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shy
Crypt Keeper
Australia
1991 Posts |
Posted - 19 March 2004 : 11:54:17 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by nylorac
We must carry on, searching, discovering, inventing,isn't that right? Why wouldn't we, but we will go to far with somethings and will not be able to go back.
I understand what you are saying Nylorac and agree... but hindsight is always 20/20 isn't it?
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Mazeppa
Zombie
 
USA
897 Posts |
Posted - 05 April 2004 : 10:04:36 AM
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As we move further away from nature, things will continue to collapse. We will even fear food crops.....e.g. "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes." Mess with food? Babies? Shy is right, sometimes dead is better. Enjoy that fluoridated water, chilluns!
Robert Dougherty |
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mistresskitty
Poltergeist
Canada
254 Posts |
Posted - 05 April 2004 : 1:48:49 PM
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| i want boys for sure...no girls for me |
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Ascended Monkey
Crypt Keeper
Australia
91 Posts |
Posted - 05 April 2004 : 5:18:59 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by nylorac
Technology is wonderful as well as horrible. Do we know when enough is enough? I don't know if we do, we always want more... I am afraid of what will be.
Is my question even valid?
We must carry on, searching, discovering, inventing,isn't that right? Why wouldn't we, but we will go to far with somethings and will not be able to go back.
What most do not appreciate i what Tech/science does for us. Most take for granted SIMPLE things that keep a large part of our population walking the earth, ei. antiboitics, simple surgurys like appendix ,insulin etc.
Can you imagine if all these people that get precious about scientific development were given the option of an unaided life. Forget famine and flood and world population problems, the population would sort itself out and drop like flies.
Even squashed frogs have feelings. (Sticky and wet.) |
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CAT
Ghost
Canada
244 Posts |
Posted - 06 April 2004 : 12:32:08 PM
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| I want boys too.....Girls are mooooody. |
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mistresskitty
Poltergeist
Canada
254 Posts |
Posted - 06 April 2004 : 1:15:59 PM
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| yah the girls might grow up to be like us and have dumb boyfriends like us and stick feet in their boyfriends face like us and have no boobies like me. lol |
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Mazeppa
Zombie
USA
897 Posts |
Posted - 06 April 2004 : 3:00:43 PM
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A lot of men LOVE small boobies, mistesskitty. Don't tell yourself short..............
Robert Dougherty |
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mistresskitty
Poltergeist
Canada
254 Posts |
Posted - 07 April 2004 : 11:21:42 AM
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| im short too haha |
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CAT
Ghost
Canada
244 Posts |
Posted - 07 April 2004 : 12:31:12 PM
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| Lol ash your boobies are bigger than mine shut up! |
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mistresskitty
Poltergeist
Canada
254 Posts |
Posted - 07 April 2004 : 1:13:49 PM
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| lol i asked my mom for implants today shes like uh why lol |
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Brave New Babies
