After having three boys, Jayne and Jon Cornwill decided it was time for a change. They wanted a baby girl for many reasons. "My husband wanted a little girl that he could one day walk down the aisle. I wanted that relationship -- the bond between a mother and daughter," Jayne said on Australia's Today Show. In order to accomplish this task, the couple mortgaged their house, flew to Calfornia, and spent a whopping $50,000 to use a technology pre-implantation genetic screening (PGS) and choose the gender of their child. The process, which can only be done as a part of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment, screens embryos to make sure they have the rigth number of chromosomes and that they are free of life-threatening abnormalties. They had to fly to California to do this because the practice of it is illegal in Australia, their home country.
While I feel bad that the couple was saddened by their inability to naturally have a girl, I also feel that they aren't taking into account the possible outcomes of their boys' lives. Marcy Darnovsky, executive producer of the Center for Genetics and Society, words it nicely in an interview with Yahoo Parenting -- "If you go through a lot of trouble and expense to have a child of a certain sex, it's probably because you have a set of expectations to that sex. What if a boy wants to write poetry? What if a girl wants to play basketball? Not wear dresses? Announce that she's transgender?" It would probably be very disappointing to Jayne and Jon Cornwill if their daughter (which they paid $50,000 to be a girl) were to decide that she is transgender.
Link: https://www.yahoo.com/parenting/couple-spends-50k-to-choose-babys-sex-shining-104416191847.html
This is not okay, I dont feel it is natural for a couple to choose their childs gender.
ReplyDeleteIt's not natural, and I wouldn't press expectations to fit gender roles on children, but hopefully they'll be happy with their choice.
ReplyDelete- Hannah Kalan 6th period
I feel bad for their sons. The boys must feel like their parents do not care for them as much as they would their future daughter, and it must be devastating for them to be completely uprooted from their previous lives in order to accommodate their unborn sister.
ReplyDeleteKnowing that they have three sons to think about, I haven't the slightest clue as to why they would spend $50,000 on medical procedures just to have a girl. As parents they need to think about their children's future and the opportunities they are taking away from them by mortgaging their house. I wonder if the parents talked to their sons about this at all. I am happy that they can have the little girl they always wanted but, I just think there could have been a better way to go about this for the whole family.
ReplyDeleteThey are already expecting certain things from a female child, but as Marcy stated, what if she it different then what they expected? A child is still an individual and turn out totally different than what is expected.
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