Gender selection of children

Contention 1 "To begin, I would like to clarify my points about killing. In his first argument, my opponent cited two techniques of gender selection to defend. The second, genetic-diagnosis embryos, is, by definition, killing. The idea behind this technique is to make a bunch of embryos and then weed out (kill) the unwanted ones." ---"Its main advantage is that it avoids selective pregnancy termination as the method makes it highly likely that the baby will be free of the disease under consideration." (1) That quote was taken straight from the source I presented in round 1, "It avoids selective pregnancy termination." ---"While controversial, this approach is less destructive than fetal deselecting during the pregnancy." (1) Another quotation from my source in round 1. It is not fetal deselecting, which would be killing. ---"Some religious organizations disapprove of this procedure. The Roman Catholic Church, for example, takes the position that it involves the destruction of human life." (1) This is similar to the objection con has provided regarding killing which was, "The second, genetic-diagnosis embryos, is, by definition, killing. The idea behind this technique is to make a bunch of embryos and then weed out (kill) the unwanted ones." So I suppose by religious standards he is right. But religion is just opinion, and it is not the ultimate authority on topics like these since it doesn't provide evidence to support it's claims. While I'm not claiming that con's objection is religiously biased, I am claiming that it too is just opinion. He claims that the second method involves killing, while it does NOT in fact involve killing as I showed above. "Embryos may not be defined as persons, but the scientific community is in agreement that they are human life." ---Show the evidence that supports this claim. Of course there are probably a few religious scientists who would claim this, but a few don't speak for the entire "science community". Neither does con.ï¿½ "The first technique, sperm sorting, is less likely to be used because it has significantly lower success rates (90% for girls and 70% for guyshttp://en.wikipedia.org......) than other gender selection techniques." ---While this assumes he knows what method people are going to choose ahead of time, quite impressive mind reading by the way, it's still irrelevant since the issue is not about what method people may choose, but that both methods (and methods similar to them) are somehow unjust. Which I have clearly shown them to be the contrary.ï¿½ "My opponent attacks my first contention by saying that I have failed to prove that excess males will harm society. Firstly, I must ask readers to use their common sense in considering this point." ---Exactly, because this is what you "think" will happen. Asking people to use "common sense" exposes that very fact. Extraordinary claim, yet no evidence. But again, assuming that gender imbalance will actually become a worldwide problem, apparently it's currently only an issue in 1/3 of the world, namely China and India (Even though con has only shown evidence fo his claim about China) I'm sure China will resolve it's problems. Even if it doesn't, it's not going to greatly affect or "grossly" imbalace the world male/female ratio being only 1/3 of the world's population. "A shortage of women challenges this desire and leads men to do harmful things they otherwise wouldn't." ---Cause all men in the world would just up and turn violent? You present evolution (and ID) as references to think about. Sure, I'll give it to ya that stone age man could have faced a real shortage of women, making it a very real problem. Yes, they probably would have resorted to violence in order to "win" the mate. Yet as I have pointed out earlier, it is irrational to believe this will become a real problem today because of gender selection. Not to mention we now ï¿½ have a police force and laws to protect us from our "stone age" violence. "My opponent argues that if 2/6 (1/3) of the world has only male children, things will be alright. Consider for a moment how you would feel if everyone in your country shared your gender. My opponent's supposition is ridiculous." ---The country (China) my opponent continues to reference as though it is the "bar" that the rest of the world will set for itself is already taking steps to address their issues. I point this out a little later.ï¿½ "With only a ten to twenty percent gender imbalance, China is already beginning to feel the negative effects of gender selection." ---"Chinese authorities have vowed to take tough measures to control fetus-gender testing and sex-selective abortions to check the rising sex-ratio imbalance." (2) That's straight from con's source. But just to ram this China problem to the ground... "An analysis of statistics from population and family planning, education and public security departments showed that between 2006to 2008,the ratio fell two percentage points from the 119:100 reported in 2005." (2) ---Yes, a two percet decline in the problem... "Jiang attributed the improvement to local authorities' enhanced efforts in cracking down on illegal fetus gender identification and illegal abortion. He pledged to take further measures to curb the trend." (2) ---I think China will solve their issues. Contention 2 "I, too, can make false analogies. Simply preferring to hire a man over a woman is not discriminatory anymore than wanting chocolate or vanilla ice cream."ï¿½ ---The only problem is that your analogy refers to actual, existing human beings. How can you discriminate against something that doesn't exist? It then becomes a choice, not discrimination. That is what was aiming at with my analogy.ï¿½ "Simply preferring to abandon a girl infant instead of a boy infant is not discriminatory anymore than wanting chocolate or vanilla ice cream." ---Again, you say "infant" which assumes we are dealing with existing entities. The techniques don't deal with developed, existing babies. "If they value them equally, why are they even using gender selection?" ---I don't know, ask the parents?? I doubt it's a question of "value" as almost all parents value all children in general. Choosing the gender doesn't mean they don't value their children, or potential children to be. This argument is nonsense. Contention 3 "Again, my opponent uses a false analogy: "And smoking pot leads to heroin"" ---I was clearly being sarcastic. Which now as it is being taken out of context, I regret and apologize for making that statement. "Gender selection is a leap, skip, AND jump towards eugenics. This is why elective gender selection shouldn't be allowed." ---Claiming this is assuming that people in general have no head on their shoulders. Even so, the only real threat that would ever come from eugenics is the potential for it to fall into the wrong hands. Much like what the Nazis would had done with it. That's why we have laws and regulations, to protect society from these kinds of things from getting out of control. Yes, there may be nut jobs out there that would use this technology for ill intent, but should we therefore disallow the rest of good natured society the liberty of it just because of those who would use it for harm? In conclusion I would like to thank con for a very exciting debate and intelligent input into his arguments. However, ring that I refuted his arguments, and showed them to be invalid reasons, my resolution stands. Vote pro. Of course he does get the final word though ï¿½ =D (1) http://en.wikipedia.org... (2) http://www.chinadaily.com.cn...;