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From: taylor@hplabsc.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.comp-soc
Subject: Re: Selecting the sex...
Message-ID: <730@hplabsc.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 8-Oct-86 17:47:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: hplabsc.730
Posted: Wed Oct  8 17:47:39 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 9-Oct-86 04:19:17 EDT
Reply-To: hplabs!sun!fluke.uucp!tc.fluke.UUCP!kurt@hplabs.HP.COM
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories
Lines: 28
Approved: taylor@hplabs
Reference: <693@hplabsc.UUCP>

This article is from sun!tc.fluke.UUCP!kurt@hplabs.HP.COM
 and was received on  Wed Oct  8 14:16:50 1986

There is no long-term problem with allowing people to select the sex of
their children.  Suppose 75% of all couples selected male children.
There would soon be a noticable decrease in the observed number of girl
children playing on the playground, buying clothes, and doing the things
girl children do.  Suddenly all those parents would be wondering who their
little boys would be dating in 5 or 6 years.  Who would they marry?  The
media would be full of the 'female crisis'.  Existing girls would suddenly
become very popular.  It would be like any shortage situation in economics,
it would suddenly become VERY attractive to have girl children and the
imbalance would be corrected.

In fact the natural equilibrating process operates much faster than this.
The actual population would only have to get a few percent out of balance
for a few years.  It would never get to the extreme scenario above.
Remember, every boy-child is going to wish when he grows up that there was a
girl-child born about the same time.  That's just the way it is with
boy-children.  Furthermore, how many people out of the total pupulation are
so totally set on having a particular sex of child that they will go have
sperm drawn, centrifuged, and artificially implanted in the mother, when
there is a mechanism for obtaining randomly sexed children that is so much
more convenient and enjoyable?

Kurt Guntheroth
John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc.
{uw-beaver,decvax!microsof,ucbvax!lbl-csam,allegra,ssc-vax}!fluke!kurt