Now our debating team is the official Watsonian champions. When their first speaker began talking, I though, 'We're going to win this for sure,' but when the second and third got up there, it said nothing but doom to me. They were good, real good, and that wasn't surprising considered that prior to that, we had an equal score on the ladder. But now we know the true superior team. I guess now that I've done the debate, you can have a read of it: Good evening ladies, gentlemen and fellow debaters. Tonight we are gathered to discuss the topic, "Australian parents should be able to choose the gender of their children." I, the first speaker for the negative, will be dissecting the harmful effects this process can create on society and humanity, the mother, and the child in question. I will also be discussing the needlessness for sex selection in a modern society. Our second speaker, Trung, will be elaborating on the theme of ethics and morals in this process, how this practice is defying nature and offends religion, the potential for destruction this field of technology has, and the devaluing of human life that is caused.
- We disagree with the affirmative team's definition of the topic, simply because of the fact that suggesting that gender selection is limited to genetic alteration ignores the other methods, i.e. discriminate abortion.
- We agree with the affirmatives definition of the topic.
Before I present my arguments against gender selection, I would first like to point out some issues within the points made by the affirmative team.
Ladies and gentlemen, one assumes that tonight’s debate topic infers that child gender selection encompasses all methods by which the parent of a child may accept either male or female as the gender of their offspring in favour of the other. It is by this means that we must explore the most common method of this practice: discriminate abortion or infanticide.
In order to discover the implications this course of action may impose within Australia, what first must be discussed is the implications it has had in history. Ladies and gentlemen, in China, a male is most preferred. Millions of Chinese peasants, upon discovering the sex of their child, opt to destroy it. Ponder this for a moment. It seems barbaric, savage, a pointless waste of human life; the potential of this baby girl has been lost to the void because of a senseless practice. Now, although this reality may be an alien concept to most Australians, there are many who engage in it. And the abortion process itself can cause serious damage to the person who undergoes the procedure. Is it worth the risk of over bleeding, sterility, perforated uterus, infection, as well as heightened vulnerability to various forms of cancer, miscarriages, and premature births in the future, just because an innocent human life does not meet your expectations? Psychological damage can also be caused to the mother, often leading to depression and suicide. Imagine the guilt, the shame, the inability to live with oneself, after murdering a child for the sake of it’s sex. Ladies and gentlemen, this is one of the key reasons that this process should be outlawed and restricted in this country.
Another lesson we can learn from the turmoil caused by sex selection in other nations, is a warning of population imbalance. One thinks that one persons choice between a male or female child is unlikely to cause any effect on the grander scale, but it is surprising what can happen if something becomes available to the masses. The issue in discussion, that Australian parents should be able to choose the gender of their children, implies that the entire nation would hypothetically have access to this technology. If say, the national gender preference were to undergo a gradual shift in favour of the male gender, then the situation could degrade to a similar state of what occurs in China to this day. In that nation, there are 119 boys born to every 100 girls. Now amplify that to the entire population of China, 1.3 billion people: that creates a male-to female excess somewhere in the hundreds of millions. That’s millions of Chinese men without mates, many of them to die alone. An extreme example, perhaps, but a frightening hypothetical situation, is it not? Population imbalance causes many problems on a social level as well: as shown by poverty-stricken nations with a male-female ratio imbalance, the loss of many women within the population tends to inadvertently cause a dramatic increase in the illegal trade of human trafficking or prostitution. This raises the issue of the devaluing of human life, which our second speaker will elaborate on.
The next theme that I will address is the irrelevance of sex in a modern, western world. We are fortunate to live in Australia, a nation of equal opportunity for men and women. Many of the mitigating factors that would influence a gender preference decades ago have evaporated with the introduction of 21st century values. With the advent of feminism, Australian women of today often choose to keep their maiden name when marrying, so the issue of the continuation of the family line is no longer apparent. And there are currently no occupations within Australia that are solely for members of a specific sex, so there is an equal amount of work available to both men and women. The fact of the matter is, in the year 2006, a state of equality has been achieved. Most of the reasons that would tip the scales of favour one way or the other have been evaporated, along with the sexist ideals that spawned them.
Ladies and gentlemen, in closing, I would like to state that to impose a gender on a child who has no choice is akin to forcing a child to smoke. We live in an equal opportunity society, and the freedoms we take for granted to live in this society have their limits, and for good reason. Remember; a life, whether it’s a fetus or a teenager, is precious.
