PLEASANT GARDEN — A North Carolina couple has made local news for being able to choose the sex of their child as part of the process of creating a child at an IVF clinic. Tommy and Dana Paschal contacted the genetics and IVF Institute in Fairfax, Virginia, to request the sex selection procedure known as MicroSort. After two attempts at the sperm selection procedure, Dana became pregnant with Heather who turned two years old October 12.
Christian ethicists object to creating a child to specifications on the grounds that it objectifies and demeans the child and reduces the procreative act to one of utilitarian manufacturing. Christian medical ethics is based on the assumption that the child is her own person, and cannot be created to fulfill someone else's needs. This objection seems to be lost on Dana Paschal who said, “I love my boys, don't get me wrong, but they're closer to their dad than they are with me. It's more things they can do together, but I want somebody to do things with me, so that's why we really wanted a girl.”
Said Paschal, “I told the boys, we can go to the Bahamas, or we can have a girl, what do we want to do? So everybody discussed it, we're going for the girl, so that's what we did, so we didn't go the Bahamas, but we're going this year though, everybody,” said Dana.
Heather's brother Michael said, “I wanted to go the Bahamas but I was really looking forward to going, but I'm glad that we didn't go because I really love her a lot and stuff.”
“I want her to realize she was wanted, she was not an accident, by no means,” said Dana. In an accompanying photograph one of the Heather's older brothers is prominently wearing a cross.
See also:
Local Couple Chooses Sex Of Unborn Child
(This update courtesy of LifeSiteNews.com.)
