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Should parents be allowed to select the gender of their offspring?

In some circumstances gender selection has been practised after birth by the abandonment of unwanted infants, a practice which has not entirely died out today in some countries. The development of ultrasound scanners which allow the sex of an unborn child to be determined in the womb has more recently led to selective abortion, especially in China where cultural factors combined with the single-child policy in the 1980s and 1990s to make many families determined to ensure their only child was male.

Pros

People should have freedom of choice. Why shouldn’t would-be parents be able to do this, given that no harm is done to others by their decision? Article 16 (1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that:
"Men and women of full age… have the right to marry and to found a family."
and this right should be understood to cover the right to make decisions over how that family should be formed.

Cons

Freedom of choice is a good principle, but harm is done to others by the practice of sex selection and so it should not be allowed. Apart from the danger that serious gender imbalances will result (covered in point 3 below), making some sort of sexual selection legal and acceptable will reinforce and legitimise gender stereotypes. In practice this will inevitably mean more oppression of women, already seen as less valuable than men in many cultures. Nor is sex selection supported by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; its writers did not imagine recent developments but did include rights for equal treatment and status for women, which allowing gender selection would undermine.

It all depends on the circumstance. Choosing the geder of the child is sometimes neccessary, like when the child is born with a little bit of both sexual organs (When they are literally both male and female at the same time.). In that case I think that the parents have to choose, however I also believe that the parents should set aside as much money as they can to cover the cost of a possible sex change, so the person born with two sexes can decide what sex they feel like being.

Hmm, I'll have to find some, however I read in some articles of Newsweek (I think, if not it was Time...) the circumstances involving babies born as two sexes and people's lives after their sex was chosen for them.

But I'll look it up. xd

Hmmm, I'm coming in way late on this, but...
I think that 'choosing' the gender of the child is wrong. Like... Okay, I believe that they should leave abortion open as an option for various reasons, but... to abort a child just because you don't like what gender they're going to be? No way. That's just... Uhg, I don't even know what.
Aaand... putting them up for adoption or something? Yes, I have some friends who are adopted... but once again, I don't think it should be a decision based on gender. If you can't take care of the child, then sure... But just because you don't want them or you'd rather have the other gender?

And as far as children born with both parts... Hmmm, I don't know what I'd do if I had a child like that... Like, I'd want them to have a choice, but... Would it be worse for the kid to grow up being both at once? Or growing up and feeling like the opposite of what you decided for them?

But hey, I kinda want to adopt kids when I'm older and maybe not have my own children... Not entirely sure... But I'd like to at least be a foster parent or something. But children deserve love and parents no matter what their gender or anything like that. To 'get rid of' a child for superficial reasons like that is just wrong...