Designer baby sex selection 'heinous'
Friday, 20 June 2008
The practice of gender selection of embryos is "heinous" and will lead to genocide against communities with particular conditions, says Asperger's Syndrome New Zealand.
The organisation, which represents people who suffer from a mild form of autism, has lashed out at a Bioethics Council recommendation to government that parents undergoing in vitro fertilisation (IVF) should be allowed to select the gender of their babies.
The council report - titled Who Gets Born? - said parents should be allowed to gender-balance their families.
Under laws introduced in 2004, sex selection is banned except, where it is part of treatment for a genetic disorder or disease.
It is also banned in Australia and the United Kingdom, but is allowed in the United States.
Asperger's Syndrome NZ spokesman John Greally said the condition affected eight times more males than females and was usually accompanied by giftedness.
People with Asperger's vigilantly opposed any discriminatory action that could impinge on their status as equal and equally-valued beings.
"Any hint of the heinous practice of sex selection being permitted will inevitably pave the way to genocide against communities with conditions that are preponderant in one gender or the other," he said.
"It takes a rather thoughtless breed of eugenicists to recommend this thin-end-of-the-wedge approach to introducing what will end in tragedy if the recommendation is not killed off immediately."
Mr Greally rejected the Bioethics Council's claim that it had reflected the wishes of participants in their research.
Asperger's Syndrome NZ played an active part in deliberations and saw the outcome as a "set-up".
Their concerns have been echoed by other organisations.
If introduced, the recommendations would make society less inclusive, marginalising society's most vulnerable members - the unborn and disabled, the Catholic Bioethics Centre said.
Wendi Wicks, of the Disabled Persons' Assembly, said the lives of unborn disabled people should be protected by law.
Otago University bioethics expert Professor Donald Evans said he did not oppose selection on medical grounds but did for social reasons.
Bioethics Council chairman Associate Professor Martin Wilkinson said the feeling of the council and the feedback it had received was that key decisions like gender should be left to parents.
Associate Minister for the Environment Nanaia Mahuta said ministers would consider the report's recommendations. However, a timeline had not been set.
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