【11.08.20 纽约时报】如果你真的、真的想要一个女孩……
【中文标题】如果你真的、真的想要一个女孩……
【原文标题】If You Really, Really Wanted a Girl ...
【登载媒体】纽约时报
【原文作者】PAM BELLUCK
【原文链接】http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/sunday-review/if-you-really-really-wanted-a-girl.html?_r=2&ref=china
中国男孩的数量大大超过女孩，这种情况令人担忧。
这个月发生的一件新闻或许会改变美国人怀孕的整体状况。
使用DNA来检测胎儿的性别的准确性极高，它可以在怀孕第7周的时候得出准确率高达95％的结论，即怀孕女性的胎儿是男孩还是女孩。这项测试可以检测母亲血液或尿液中胎儿的DNA，检测用品在药店和网络上都有销售。有关其准确性的报道似乎会让它越来越受欢迎。
但是这却引发了一个伦理上的问题，如果胎儿的性别不符合夫妇的意愿，他们是否会放弃这个孩子，就像中国和印度所发生的事情那样？那里的男孩数量已经大大超过了女孩。这种可能性让很多人深感忧虑，并且为反堕胎政策的出台添加了砝码。
这项测试是大量DNA检测试验第一个市场化的产品，最初目的是为了在怀孕早期发现唐氏综合症等其它遗传特征紊乱的现象，以便于怀孕女性做出是否保留孩子的决定。
康涅狄格大学医疗中心的生物伦理学家Audrey R. Chapman说：“我认为从长远角度来看，人们对怀孕和家庭的态度都会因此有所转变。女性在怀孕早期的投入会低于怀孕晚期的投入，而且会出现一些先决条件让女性决定对怀孕的关注程度：‘怎么样的情况下我才会留下这个孩子。’”
有诸多医学手段可以进行胎儿性别测试，但是如果有性疾病史夫妇双方发现孩子的性别不是他们想要的，就可以避免参加昂贵、繁琐的基因测试。对大多数夫妇来说，这项测试虽非强制，但是毕竟可以简单地在超声波测试前几个星期就可以判定胎儿的性别，要比羊膜穿刺术更方便、更安全。
康涅狄格大学医疗中心妇产学James Egan博士与Chapman博士共同编写了有关性别选择的几部著作，他说：“怀孕7周是一个重要的时间点。很多女性不会去做超声波扫描，也不会看到胎儿的模样，甚至很多女性不知道已经怀孕。你可以使用药物终止妊娠。”比如RU-486药片就可以在怀孕10周前，在家中小心地服用。
医疗部主任Jeffrey Steinberg博士说，有一些迹象显示一些美国人意图选择孩子的性别。在洛杉矶、纽约和墨西哥瓜达拉哈拉的一个连锁诊所——生育研究所中，每年来就诊的500对夫妇中，大约85％都要求判断胎儿性别，尽管其中有四分之三都来自海外。
Steinberg博士说：“这个数字在过去四年中大幅度增长。”他的诊所通过预先植入的基因诊断法来确定胎儿性别，同时还可以筛查其它遗传疾病。他说：“如果是女性来电预约，他们肯定是想要个女孩。如果是男人打来的电话，他们肯定是想要个男孩。”
但是一些临床医师和伦理学家认为，这种性别选择方式更值得推广，因为它在胚胎植入之前，也就是怀孕之前就可以做出判断。
纽约大学生育中心的项目主任Jamie Grifo博士说：“我们尝试尽量避免堕胎。”他和其它医师在一般情况下只允许有两个孩子以上的夫妇选择胎儿性别，因为他们喜欢“家庭平衡”，也就是男孩和女孩的比例相当。
Grifo博士说：“有的人已经有了两个女孩，还想要一个男孩，这样每个孩子都有不同性别的孩子陪伴成长，这有什么错呢？”
然而，传统的生育过程具有较高的成本和不确定性，选择性别几乎是不可能的。而胎儿DNA检测的费用只有250美元到350美元，大部分人都可以承担。
反堕胎组织把性别选择列入了立法议程，亚利桑那和俄克拉荷马新近通过了禁止以选择性别为理由堕胎的法律，纽约也准备颁布类似的法律。国家权利生活委员会立法机构的Mary Spaulding Balch说：“你会看到越来越多的州引入这样的法律。”
得克萨斯大学的法律和生物伦理教授John Robertson说，这项法律或许无法通过法庭辩论。但是尽管那些反对堕胎的组织，比如NARAL，反对这项法律，但他们或许不会从政治上和法庭上激烈进行反对，因为选择性别并不是造成堕胎的最大动机。
最值得关注的问题是，来自印度和中国的移民将利用性别测试来放弃女性胎儿。Egan博士和Chapman博士的研究显示，亚裔美国母亲，尤其是在第三胎上，男孩明显多于女孩，这强烈显示了性别选择的痕迹。
一些胎儿DNA测试产品生产厂家试图不让产品进入中国和印度市场，以避免选择胎儿性别的行为。还要求顾客签署弃权声明书，声明测试结果不会作为放弃胎儿的依据。
Egan博士医疗数据中的母亲大部分在海外出生，说明美国本土出生的人士对于男性后代并非极为关注。
Egan博士说，判断性别和其它遗传疾病的胎儿DNA检测揭示了“很多传统妇产科学无法应对的问题，这是一个勇敢的新世界。”
原文：
The example of China, where boys now outnumber girls, is worrying.
THIS month brought news that could alter the landscape of American pregnancy.
Tests using DNA to determine a fetus’s sex were shown to be remarkably accurate, able to tell with 95 percent certainty as early as seven weeks into pregnancy, if a woman is carrying a boy or girl. The tests, which detect the fetus’s DNA in a mother’s blood or urine, are available in drugstores and online, and reports about their accuracy are likely to increase their popularity.
But the tests also raise ethical questions: whether couples will abort fetuses of an unwanted sex — as has happened in China and India, where boys now outnumber girls. The possibility discomfits many, and is also providing fuel for anti-abortion politics.
The test is the first of an expected raft of DNA tests likely to detect disorders like Down syndrome and other genetic traits early enough in pregnancy that more women may consider abortion.
“I think over the long run this has the potential of changing attitudes toward pregnancy and to family,” said Audrey R. Chapman, a bioethicist at the University of Connecticut Health Center. “Women may be less invested in their pregnancies earlier than they are later, and the question has been raised whether women will look at their pregnancies increasingly as being conditional: ‘I will keep this pregnancy only if.’ ”
Fetal sex tests have a few medical applications, allowing couples with histories of rare sex-linked disorders to avoid costly and invasive genetic testing if they learn they are expecting the other sex. But for most couples, the tests, which are unregulated, simply answer the boy-or-girl question weeks earlier than ultrasound, and in a less invasive and safer way than amniocentesis.
“Seven weeks is a different time in pregnancy,” said Dr. James Egan, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Connecticut Health Center who was a co-author of a study on sex selection with Dr. Chapman and others. “Women haven’t had the ultrasound where you see the fetus that looks like a baby. Many people don’t even know that a woman is pregnant. And you can have a medical termination,” using pills like RU-486, which can be used at home discreetly before 10 weeks of pregnancy.
There is evidence that some Americans want to choose their babies’ sex. At the Fertility Institutes, a set of clinics in Los Angeles, New York and Guadalajara, Mexico, 85 percent of roughly 500 couples each year seek sex selection, although three-quarters of them come from overseas, said Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg, the medical director.
“It’s jumped over the past four years,” said Dr. Steinberg, whose clinics determine sex through pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, an embryo screening that also detects genetic disorders. He said that “if a woman calls to make the appointment, the couple almost always wants a female. If a man calls, they almost always want a male.”
But clinics and some ethicists say this type of sex selection is more acceptable because it occurs before embryos are implanted, before pregnancy.
“We’re trying to prevent the abortion,” said Dr. Jamie Grifo, program director for New York University’s Fertility Center. His and other clinics typically allow sex selection for couples with two or more children, parents interested in “family balancing,” adding a child of the opposite sex.
“For someone who has two girls and wants to have a boy, so each sibling can grow up with brother and sister, what’s wrong with that?” Dr. Grifo said.
Still, the cost and commitment of the fertility process makes such sex selection cases relatively unusual. Fetal DNA tests, costing between $250 and $350, are more affordable.
Anti-abortion groups are incorporating sex selection in legislative agendas. Arizona and Oklahoma recently passed laws banning sex-selected abortion; a similar bill was just introduced in New York. “I think you will see more states introducing it,” said Mary Spaulding Balch, director of state legislation for the National Right to Life Committee.
The laws would probably not survive court challenges, said John Robertson, a professor of law and bioethics at the University of Texas. But while abortion rights groups, like NARAL Pro-Choice America, oppose such bans, they may be less eager to fight them politically or in court because sex selection is not the most socially sympathetic motivation for abortion.
我家在农村，不过现在也生活在城市里。是在浙江
一般在乡村假如头胎生个女孩，一般基本上过个5年在生一个，假如再生个女孩的的就不生了。有些有关系的会去做B超，还是女的就打掉，不过这种情况很少。 chinlish 发表于 2011-9-6 08:59 static/image/common/back.gif
我家在农村，不过现在也生活在城市里。是在浙江
一般在乡村假如头胎生个女孩，一般基本上过个5年在生一个， ...
不是说头几个月不允许作B超么 人家有关系 本帖最后由 滔滔1949 于 2011-9-7 17:50 编辑
“因为选择性别并不是造成堕胎的最大动机。”
？！
因为要选择性别，所以才合心意的就留下，不合就堕掉，这难道不是“最大动机”吗？
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