Talk:Sex selection

Natural Animal Sex Selection

Is there no article on animal sex selection? Specifically, many species of animals have unequal numbers of male and female progeny. For example, many species of bees produce significantly more females, or species of primates with male dispersal which have high-ranking females give birth to females and low-ranking females give birth to males. In the primates case, I don't think there is any biological understanding of how this process works, although it has been documented and understood from an evolutionary point of view. I came on to see if I could find an answer. let me know if you have one.

Also, shouldn't there be another page for this topic? If there isn't anything out there (which I couldn't find) I'll make one. Terry 05:00, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Is animal sex selection even practiced outside of zoos or shelters for endangered species? It doesn't strike me as something worthy of more then a footnote. -pstanton

Deers, for instance, can control the sex-ratio. There seems to be proof that does yield more females when food is scarce. Why? because a male born in these circumstances would be weak, and not breed at all, whereas females breed always. -Felipe —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.63.101.220 (talk) 00:35, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

On other topic, sex selection has been used for a time on cattle, separating X and Y spermatozoa, and now it is been adapted for other species.-Felipe —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.63.101.220 (talk) 00:37, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

pstanton, you make the mistake of assuming sex selection is only performed by man on other animals. There are many examples of sex selection in nature by the parents of the affected offspring. For that matter, I think it's worth mentioning that there are amphibians and fish that can change their own gender to suit their situation (hey passing on one's genes, whether you're male or female, is a reproductive success), which I think counts as a kind of sex selection. 76.111.80.228 (talk) 20:24, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

merge suggestions

My vote is to keep sex selection separate from eugenics, but to merge into it the articles on gendercide and sex-selective abortion and infanticide, which describe controversial sex selective methods. Eugenics, to my (admittedly naive) thinking, connotes using genetic methods, while sex selection may involve less sophisticated or even after-the-fact techniques. Ojcit 18:55, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Eugenics was a movement from late 19th through mid-20th century that advocated eliminating "inferior" human specimens. In North America, that meant sterilyzing mentally incompetent persons. It lost, by association, whatever appeal it had when Nazism arose and pursued the elimination (i.e. murder) of "inferior races", Jews in the first instance, but also Gypsies.

Sex selection in China, India, and other parts of the world (most notably in Asia) has a different history and a different motivation and therefore probably deserves its own terminology. Some feminists might disagree with me on this distinction. Andrew

mege for as it is esiar to use —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.195.89.79 (talk) 16:18, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

merge suggestions

There are a few very vocal groups insisting that those seeking sex selection are doing so at the expense of female offspring. They remain steadfast in their opinions in spite of numerous studies demonstrating that those seeking non-medical sex selection (sex selection for reasons other than genetic diseases related to one sex or the other) do so primarily to balance their families and select equally between boys and girls. While there are clearly cultural, ethnic and geographic variances in the choice of gender, to combine gender selection with infanticide or abortion or eugenics would represent a gross distortion of the true meaning of each of these procedures and would prove to be quite misleading in the inference. smj

merger suggestions

I do not believe that these two subjects should be united. I am planning to use pre-implantation to concieve a girl, because after research I believe it would be difficult for my husband to do so naturally. To have even come across infanticide or gendercide while doing this research was an insult to me. Many women would never consider such means! Even putting up a child for addoption because of gender alone 'hurts my heart'. I have a step-son, and when I found I was pregnant I desperately wanted a girl. But I had a boy and couldn't love him more if he had been a girl. I also could not concieve of discarding unwanted embryos. Merging these subjects would bias unfamiliar readers against pre-implantation sex selection, which has no real ethical issues conserning the child, in my opinion. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lynn921 (talk • contribs) 01:25, 23 May 2008 (UTC)