The IVF Gendercide

Critics of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) have long warned that the technology could be used to customize children, allowing parents and doctors to effectively play God. According to a recent Slate article, which sounded like a review of the movie Gattaca, those fears were well-founded. According to the article,  

You can have a baby when it suits your career, thanks to egg freezing (or at least you can try). You can sequence your embryos’ genomes for $2,500 a pop and attempt to maximize your future child’s health (or intelligence, attractiveness, or height) … you can even select eye color. There is a vast disparity between who gets to use IVF… and who is using it to create designer families.  

Another example is sex selection. Numbers vary from clinic to clinic, but one Los-Angeles-based IVF clinic estimates that about 85% of its patients engage in sex selection. However, which sex is being selected is surprising.  

Historically, when parents choose between sons and daughters—think of China under its one-child policy or Romans who practiced infanticide by exposure—boys won out. Today, Americans using IVF are abandoning the sons in favor of daughters.  

“Abandoning” is the correct term when it comes to IVF. Standard procedure involves the creation of anywhere between five and 10 embryos that are then implanted either one at a time or in multiples. Embryos that are not implanted are frozen, donated to medical research, or worse, destroyed, a tragedy because every embryo is a whole life in its very earliest stage. Today, an estimated 1.5 million embryos are stored in freezers in the U.S. 

Why are Americans voluntarily abandoning these boys? According to the Slate article, “toxic masculinity” is a main concern for many women (even those who are already boy moms). Boys are, after all, more likely to be mass shooters and less likely to help break glass ceilings. Perhaps some parents think that raising daughters will be easier.  

While some have rightly noted that sex selection is inescapably sexist, underneath the practice is something far more insidious. Parenthood is widely seen as a consumerist activity. Children are viewed in the same way as pets or plants. They are objects to be acquired rather than persons whose intrinsic dignity must be respected. For many parents, children exist to serve their happiness, whether to be a parent’s “bestie” or to fulfill their parent’s hopes and dreams. 

It’s difficult to imagine that some of the factors behind the dramatic increase of young females experiencing gender dysphoria are not at work here as well. Girls are thought to be more malleable, in terms of personality, appearance, and even identity. It may be consumerist parents prefer girls instead of boys for this reason. 

Whatever the motives, the practice of IVF is enabling a “gendercide,” a term used by The Economist in 2010 to describe why 100 million girls were missing in China, India, and elsewhere. Despite claims that IVF is all about “fertility” and bringing children into the world, the practice must be evaluated according to how it’s actually practiced—not just by what it promises. Infertility is tragic, but it does not warrant an “anything goes” kind of ethic or policy. It certainly cannot justify a push for designer babies and third-party parenting.  

Even the wonderful “ends” of a new life cannot justify unethical means. The lack of regulation around IVF is a recipe for disaster, a recipe already serving up more deaths than lives.