ON CHOOSING A BABY SEX - WHAT THE FUTURE GENERATION THINKS, A PRELIMINARY SURVEY

The new biomedical techniques of reproduction, such as predeterminatio n of a baby's sex, are gradually being initiated into formal practice in some countries such as Britain. This paper surveyed the attitudes o f 60 academic and 60 nonacademic men and women between 18 and 20 years on whether they supported the idea of choosing a baby's sex. More tha n 75% of all participants rejected the idea of choosing a baby's sex, whilst only 20% agreed with the latter issue and a negligible number ( 4%) offered no opinion. Neither sex differences nor differences betwee n academic/nonacademic population were significant. The results are di scussed in relation to recent work on differences in attitudes between genders in academic and nonacademic settings.