Yuyutsu wrote:

"Ultimately a child is God's gift, not a parents' choice. A potential parent can make efforts this way or the other but only God produces the fruit of their effort."

More crap!

Dear David F.,

«If a couple should decide to have a child I think they should be prepared to love that child and to accept that the selection of genes that the child will have is selected from their genes.»

No couple can decide to have a child - all they can decide is to TRY to have a child.

This is the Reality, should you dislike the use of the word 'God'. I used the word 'God' as I was addressing Nathan, not you.

As you may well know, many children are born without their parents even deciding to try having them, it just happens...

Now due to human's less-than-divine nature, I doubt you can find even one couple who are truly prepared to love their child unconditionally and without expectations. The fact is that when humans consciously have children, they do so because they feel incomplete and believe that a child would complete them in one way or another (not that anyone or anything can truly complete them, but that's how they feel). Expectations do exist even if one denies them 1000 times, and for some parents these expectations involve gender: for others gender doesn't matter so long as their child becomes a concert pianist, a doctor or an athletic champion.

If someone was able to love their child unconditionally, then they would also love any other child just the same, so they would feel no need to bring an extra one into the world.

Now it's not that I recommend this, but suppose that a particular couple's love depended on their child's gender and they insisted on having a baby, then I think it better for them to try choosing their baby's gender than to bring yet another unloved child into the world.

Why on earth do we wish to frig about with nature! As a few herein have said, a child is a gift from God, so what right do we flawed humans have to start mucking about with nature's (God's) contribution to humanity? For C**ist sake, leave it well alone. Indeed we've harmed society quite enough with this 'selection' nonsense and hell knows what else.

Dear Yuyutsu,

A couple may decide to have a child. They may not be able to carry out that decision.

I said nothing about God. Your reference to that imaginary entity is gratuitous.

My oldest granddaughter said she is not going to bear children. Should she feel the need to have a child she will adopt one.

Nathan doesn't say who or how many people are into 'sex selection'; nor does he say where he got the idea from. So, I'm not convinced that parents are actually doing it. Unless I've missed something, I am not aware that anyone can select the sex of a child, apart from artificial insemination, and he doesn't mention that procedure at all. And, as 2% or less of births result from that procedure, it is hardly an OMG event if this selection does occur.

I'm with o sung wu: leave it to nature. I don't believe in IVF. If you can't crack it naturally, you weren't meant for parenting.

Adoption. You can probably choose to have a boy or a girl - if you are prepared to accept that you have no DNA in the game, and are prepared to live with whatever traits and illness the child inherits from its natural parents. It's a pretty brave thing to do, adopting a child, who will never really be yours, and will most likely start looking for his or her real parents, with the help of do-gooding arseholes, who yabber about the 'right to know', and to hell with the people who took the child in.

Leave it to nature.

/www.sbs.com.au/news/article/could-gender-selective-abortions-be-happening-in-australia/titrb4ckz
There is some evidence that gender selection is one cause of abortion in Australia,