The New Eugenics: Sex Testing of 6-Week Embryos

The new eugenics forges ahead with a new "home" test soon to be available to determine an embryo's gender at 6 weeks development. (Ultrasound permits gender identification at about 20 weeks.) Why the need to know the sex--this isn't about disease--so early? I can think of only one main reason: If you want a boy and it's a girl--or probably less frequently, the other way around--then there is plenty of time to have a eugenic abortion and start again. From the story:

But some health authorities have already stopped revealing that information for fear of "wrong-sex" terminations...Wrong-sex abortions are more common in some ethnic minorities--with boys being more highly prized than girls.

But now with the home test, people who don't want a little girl or boy can find out early enough to destroy their daughter or son--with no one the wiser. So much for loving the child we conceive unconditionally. We apparently are moving into an era in which we not only have a right to have a child, but to have the child we want. We should call this the solipsistic era. All that seems to matter any more is, "I want."