DEVELOPING HALAKHIC ATTITUDES TO SEX PRESELECTION
subsumed under"genetic engineering." This is telling because it is the custom of Index Medicus to have rubrics"follow- rather than anticipate the usage in the literature."'® Third, while the notion of sex preselection has historically been ardently pursued, the same cannot be said of genetic experimentation, thus suggesting a fundamental attitudinal difference towards the two concepts.’
The final reason why sex preselection should not be treated as a sub-set of genetic trait selection for purposes of halakhic consideration is that, though both entail the choosing of characteristics, the halakhic issues involved are vastly different. In matters of genetic engineering, the halakhic exchange- yet to be crystallized into a definitive stance- is over the question of whether or not genetic engineering will be held to be permissible at all, and, if so, under what circumstances. Furthermore, the focus of the discussion is clearly on the medical applications of genetic engineering to help alleviate disease, ameliorate suffering or prolong life. If anything, the suggestion that parents should be able to pick their offspring's physical or behavioral traits based upon some utopian vision of the child's future, meets with grave halakhic concern and strong resistance.'®
Quite the contrary is true when it comes to halakhic deliberations on sex preselection. Here the discussion is not as to whether or not sex preselection is permissible, for there is no serious halakhic objection raised to the concept itself. Instead, the sex preselection conversation centers around which particular methods are halakhically allowable. Nor does the discussion highlight potential medical benefits which might accrue to some families by preventing inherited diseases that are only passed to one sex or the other, but rather it fully anticipates sex preselection based on nothing more than parental desire.'” In the halakhic mind-set, sex preselection and genetic engineering are altogether divergent subjects.
the traditional halakhist when he avers that"[tlhe primary halakhic concern is not with regard to the decision to engage in sex preselection but
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