I don't really have much of an opinion about Microsort technology except to say that it seems like a pretty fucking stupid idea to me, and also totally predictable. If you had asked me 10 years ago whether I would have wanted a little baby boy or a little girl I would have gone with the former, almost certainly: carry on the family name, teaching the little feller how to do a cross-over dribble, etc. I am today the father of two girls, and I can't imagine them being anything other than their completely wonderful, occasionally infuriating, selves. (Listen: yuppies. Life happens. It's better that way.)
It's this quote from Matthew Yglesias's blog, where he compares Microsort to "the crude and taboo method of selective abortion," that got to me, though.
What a weaselly way of putting things. Really Mr. Yglesias. Using ultrasound to test the sex of a baby, and then deciding to abort if the fetus is a female, a decision which, I can pretty much guarantee, is not the mother's alone (and probably not even primarily) in most of the societies where it is carried out: you find that practice to be crude? Sounds like the only problem we have here is an aesthetic one. As for "taboo," it suggests that our discomfort is merely a product of our social environment, and neatly avoids describing the thing with its proper adjective. Next time try something a little more robust: like, the "evil," or "repugnant," or "morally abhorrent" method of selective abortion.
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