The media has been reporting that medical science has advanced to a point when parents-to-be can decide the gender of their offspring. I wonder if this freedom is a true blessing.
We earthlings are often intimidated and troubled by the unknown especially when the future appears to be bleak or when our mind could only accommodate one desired possibility. We dream we can decide about everything and have control over the happenings and events in life so that they fit perfectly into our own plans and agenda and we have complete piece of mind always. But imagine if we could 100% determine everything, including the weather, a business deal outcome, the lifespan of a pet, or the gender of the baby just to grant that overdue wish of your mother-in-law, what would life be reduced to? Wouldn’t it stop to be precious and spontaneous, wouldn’t it become mechanical and dull, wouldn’t we become captives of our own lives?
As we moan and groan in this dilemma, I am reminded of Ecclesiastes 11:5-8 “As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things. Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let not your hands be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well. Light is sweet, and it pleases the eyes to see the sun. However many years a man may live, let him enjoy them all. But let him remember the days of darkness, for they will be many.”
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Genetics is a lot more complex than the biblical passages cited allow for.
My daughter is marrying a wonderful guy who, as it turns out is a carrier of the Fragile X gene. Fragile X has carries with it a high probablility of mental retardation, especially if the child is a girl. Her fiance is absolutely brilliant - the smartest young person I know. And yet, with his high Fragile X scores there is a 1 in 3 chance that he will suffer a severe mental decline starting at about age 50. One can, of course, hope that medical science will develop therapies for this aspect of the condition over the next 25 years.
Still with the ability to do otherwise, I see no way that a person of good will would deliberately pass on the Fragile X gene, when by testing that could be so easily avoided.
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