Hi there. It has been quite a long time since I have written. Eight months to be exact!
Did you know that a new test is going to become available for expecting parents soon? The test will be a blood test that determines your baby's sex even earlier than the now available abdominal ultrasound around 16-18 weeks of gestation.
How do you feel about that? What is the purpose? Is it so that parents can celebrate even earlier; find out if it's going to be all blue or if it's going to be all pink?
Perhaps. There are many parents who would like to find out even sooner. Maybe get an even sooner start on that new color in the nursery. But is that what your first thought was? Or was it something a bit more **dark?
My gut reaction was what many countries around the world are already doing....aborting unwanted girls (and at rarer times, boys). It has been a long time preference in world cultures for women to bear boys and not girls. Will this test now afford people the luxury of 'choosing' what child they will have? Will it spur the thought in folks that hey, we already have a girl. We only want two children....let's opt out on another girl...and try again for a boy next time.
You think it sounds vulgar. You think it sounds extreme. I don't think it's any step farther away from aborting for genetic disorders, selective reduction, or the ever so popular 'inconvenient' pregnancy.
When will you take a stand? When is enough, enough? Must a line be drawn. Are you ok with aborting for one reason and not another? Is one reason for aborting really better or 'more ok' than another?
When we were pregnant with our daughter, we found it appalling and grotesque that so many physicians and techinicians asked us if we were 'continuing' our pregnancy. Do you think they will soon begin to ask if you are ok with the sex your fetus is? We live in an 'extreme' culture. I don't find it so far fetched or extreme to see it in the near future.
