The Hanover Collaboration

I’m hoping we can have a heated series on eugenics in the coming weeks or months.

I was recently reading [hard version] that there are still as many as 50 million missing women in Asia. And that got me thinking.

Let’s say there is this couple. They want to have a child of a particular gender. This is undeniably normal. Whatever their motivation, it isn’t particularly relevant at this junction. Suppose I invent a condom that differentially lets the correct “gendered” sperm through. Or maybe slightly more realistically, I create a spermacide jell through which one type passes more easily than the other. Is using that okay? If our couple uses such a thing, have they done something wrong?

If so, who is hurt? How strongly must the couple want that gender to offset the damage? In other words, how much disincentive should the government apply in their “gender choice tax”. Should that tax be progressive? Should it be a prohibition?

If not, how about instead of the special condom, they go to a lab where they have the sperm spun and filtered. Is that still okay?

How about they use IVF and pick?

How about they do it the old fashioned way but get an abortion if it doesn’t turn out right? (to keep it fair, let’s assume no safety risk to the mother.)

How about the woman has the kid, and they give it away if it doesn’t turn out right?

My opinion, all of them are okay. The baby market isn’t the most efficient but it’ll work. The abortion one is suddenly much better because we can now tell at 5 weeks

Now let’s suppose that the culture within which our couple lives prefers one genger over the other. Suppose further that the couple’s preference is in the same direction as that of the culture. Repeat all the same questions. Now I think we might need to have a progressive incentive. (Progressive so there isn’t as large of an economic correlation).

But is it really important that we maintain the 1 to 1 ratio? Is 49/51 worse than 50/50? Even in the extreme case, at some point, scaricity is going to increase the price of the other gender until people start producing them. In fact, such a system stands to decrease discrimination by increasing the value of the less-apreciated gender. Remember the idea of a dowry? If girls outnumber boys 10 to 1 I could easily imagine it coming back.

I’ll leave the ethicists to their fear. I’m not sure which kind I want. Maybe a boy would be more fun. I’ve heard they are easier too. Yeah, I think I’m going to pick boy. Have any of you guys decided yet?