In the future, should parents be able to choose the sex of their children?

The sex of the child has become irrelevant in modern western society therefore there shouldn’t be a need for the parents to select the sex of their child. If in the future this is allowed it could have social, financial and religious implications. In being able to choose the sex of the child, it puts forward the debate about genetic modifications leading to perhaps genetic superiority. Consequently, this could possibly cause tension between differing social classes. Furthermore, it poses the question as to whether we should be allowed to ‘play God’, namely in imposing authority over something left to natural chance, or even if we as a Western society are able to. Although parents should be given the choice to name and educate their children as wished, scientific and forced selection of their genders does, arguably, pose a number of medical threats to infant health, and is a form of rebellion against common religion.
Genetically modifying or choosing anything in the modern world should be taken with caution, for it could have negative implications. Some people would argue that, in being able to first choose the sex of the child, a chain of events allowing genetic modification would be begun. The end result, being the worst case scenario, would end up with what many critics call a ‘designer baby’. Designer babies are children who have had their genetic make up altered to preference their parents. These ‘perfect’ children could have immunity to the common cold, could be classical handsome, could be intellectually superior. The reason why people are cautious in allowing parents to choose the sex of the baby, is because they are worried about the consequences of possibly opening up a generation of superior babies. This, however absurd, could happen in society, which is why this particular topic is constantly referred to as being like a ‘slippery slope’. 
However some argue that perhaps there could be laws or rules put in place so that society doesn’t become chaotic. By society becoming ‘chaotic’, it means that in choosing the sex of the child it could allow for society to have a imbalanced sex ratio. For example, in China in the late 90s imposed a one child policy to decrease the size of their population, in their culture boys were the preferred sex which therefore caused many parents to abort babies if they found out that they were a girl. This consequently caused China to have a extremely huge ratio imbalance in gender. For every one girl there are about twelve boys and China is still facing the consequences. What to take from this is that choosing the sex of the baby will have lasting bad effects on society. Therefore to avoid all of this unnecessary trouble, parents shouldn’t be able to choose the sex of their child in the future. 
Christians would agree that the sex of the baby is not for the parents to choose, it is for god. In the parents being able to choose the baby they are openly defying god by trying to be God. christians believe that you shouldn’t intervene with what god has already set out for you, to christians, god has given the parents a gift of a child and therefore they should accept the gift rather than metaphorically ‘return it’ and exchange it for another ‘better’ gift. However if the parents don’t believe in god then that means that the parents are free to do whatever they please. However imagine if the parents live in a christian country or state such as Texas in the United States. The parents consequently could be shunned from their community for choosing the sex of the baby. This therefore can have lasting effects on the family and the child. The only course of action is to avoid unnecessary problems, which would mean that the parents don’t get to choose the sex of their child which shouldn’t matter in the western world. 
In modern day society, especially in the western world, people take pride in gender equality which is why this essay questions whether or not the sex of the child really is of high importance. Of course some parents would prefer to have either a boy or a girl. But this is only a preference, therefore meaning that if you don’t have a boy for example, does that mean you are going to love the baby less? Naturally, psychological experiments have shown that the gender of the child only matters for a matter or months, but studies show that the parents will always feel an unconditional love for the baby no matter what. This is assuming that the pregnancy is wanted which would be the case if the parents had a choice to choose the gender of the child. However, this assumption is flawed because:Therefore there shouldn’t be a need for the parents to be able to choose the sex of the child. In imposing this ‘rule’ so to speak, the parents can avoid certain problems that could be caused from the process, such as unwanted financial problems. No doubt that if this procedure was allowed in the future, it would have extreme financial burdens on the parents unless they were wealthy. But in allowing only the wealthy to be unfair, all parents should be allowed to choose the sex of their baby there was such an option. Therefore, to stop unnecessary problems, this shouldn't be allowed. 
After considering the financial, social and religious aspects of allowing parents to choose the sex of their child, it’s evident that allowing this would cause more problems than it would solve. Therefore, although choosing a child’s gender poses stark moral and political issues, threatened more is the health of the child in question. In sum, parents should not be allowed at will, with ease, to choose the genders of their children, as this may lead to growing futuristic demands for intellectual and athletic advantages which are bioengineered. However with the development of science and the question of ethics, no doubt this debate will come to an end.