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Dangerous experiment in fetal engineering
A new paper just published in the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry uses extensive Freedom of Information Act findings to detail an extremely troubling off-label medical intervention employed in the U.S. on pregnant women to intentionally engineer the development of their fetuses for sex normalization purposes…
The pregnant women targeted are at risk for having a child born with the condition congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), an endocrinological condition that can result in female fetuses being born with intersex or more male-typical genitals and brains. Women genetically identified as being at risk are given dexamethasone, a synthetic steroid, off-label starting as early as week five of the first trimester to try to “normalize” the development of those fetuses, which are female and CAH-affected. Because the drug must be administered before doctors can know if the fetus is female or CAH-affected, only one in eight of those exposed are the target type of fetus.
Because not having a “perverted child” is worth risking the health of her brothers and sisters. You absolutely know that custom adjustment of fetuses is happening.
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It’s not about a “perverted child”. A person with atypical genitals will have trouble in society, period. If given the choice, would you choose your child to be gay 100 years ago? Today, being gay isn’t much of an inconvenience and soon it will be completely accepted, but just ask Alan Turing what he thought. Being intersex is a deformity, and while nobody *should* treat them differently for it, just like polydactyls, let’s say, shouldn’t be treated differently, that’s not going to really be the case.
Furthermore, typical genitals are much favored in sex. Not to be coarse, but I doubt many people who like penile penetration would enjoy such penetration from a micropenis. Dooming their child to a lifetime of trouble in the bedroom is not necessarily something parents want. And on the flip side, a woman with a micropenis will probably turn many men off, and the hormonal imbalance might make the woman less attractive to heterosexual men as well. And she might be infertile. There’s a lot of potential unpleasantness in her life because of this condition. Why not avert it?
I think this sort of thing isn’t pure evil. I’m not saying it’s perfectly right, but it’s far from wrong.
Because the authors of the report consider it unethical to treat 8 unborn children with a steroid that isn’t proven safe at high doses to possibly prevent a child with such a condition.
For the parents, better choices could be to not have children, adopt children, or even abort a fetus with this condition if they really feel that strongly about it. The condition is detectable at a later stage of development.