Sex Preselection: an aid to couples or a threat to humanity?

On September 10 1998 the Italian press reported the discovery of a new method to predetermine the sex of a new baby with 90% accuracy. The method is beneficial in many ways and no ethical impediments to the technology have been noted from the point of view of the fetus or of the couple requesting the preselection for strictly medical reasons. However the safety and benefits of the technology is only part of the issue. There is a possibility that sex preselection requested by a couple because of preference for a baby of a specific sex may create injustice discrimination and bias at the level of a community a country or the world as a whole. The problem is that if applied on a large scale couples will use the technology to not have a female baby. Several brief considerations show very clearly that a readily available sex predetermination test will inevitably worsen the already terrible situation existing in various parts of the world in terms of womens rights. It is also bound to create an overall imbalance in the male-to-female ratio worldwide. Hence sex preselection should be submitted to severe limitation.