Health Ministry blasted over decision to allow fetus sex selection [Israel]
By Haaretz,
Haaretz
| 05. 20. 2005
The Health Ministry has been sharply criticized for its decision to allow parents to choose their baby's sex in cases defined as "exceptional."
Commissioner for Future Generations Shlomo Shoham, a retired judge, said yesterday that "providing the option of choosing the sex of a fetus is sliding down a slippery slope," and "another step on the road to severe moral deterioration."
Shoham intends to use his authority to recommend that the Knesset pass a law banning the possibility of choosing the sex of a fetus, except when there is an established mortal danger.
MK Roman Bronfman (Yahad) asked the chairman of the Knesset Welfare and Health Committee to convene a meeting as soon as possible to address the issue. "This is an extremely serious ethical issue and the committee must discuss the limits of human intervention in the rules of nature," Bronfman said.
The Health Ministry decision created for the first time an official opening for using technology to select a baby's sex for nonmedical reasons. Such use of technology, Shoham said, "is banned in many countries in the world...
Related Articles
By Tomoko Otake, The Japan Times | 04.09.2024
A decade ago, researcher Haruko Obokata caused a sensation when she published two papers in the journal Nature, in which she claimed that she had discovered a way to create stem cells easily using the so-called STAP method.
With STAP...
By Yelena Biberman and Jonathan D. Moreno, Bioethics Forum | 04.16.2024
A quiet biological revolution in warfare is underway. The genome is emerging as a new domain of conflict. The level of destruction that only nuclear weapons could previously achieve is fast becoming as accessible as a cyberattack.
Now for the...
By Jorge Barrera and Rachel Houlihan, CBC | 04.09.2024
A Canadian DNA laboratory knowingly delivered prenatal paternity test results that routinely identified the wrong biological fathers — ruling out the real dads — and left a trail of shattered lives around the globe, a CBC News investigation has found...
By Eleanor Hayward and Joanna Crawford, The Times | 03.29.2024
Gazing out at the Mediterranean from an idyllic rocky mountaintop, Sophie Hermann announced to her half a million Instagram followers that she had decided to freeze her eggs. Since that post in August, the 37-year-old former Made in Chelsea star...