In most of Europe and Asia, using in-vitro
fertilization (IVF) to
choose a child’s sex is against the law. This prohibition has
families flocking from around the globe to fertility clinics in
Thailand and America, two of the few countries that don’t regulate
this reproductive territory.
Newport Beach fertility specialist
Daniel Potter said he sees about 10 patients per month who come
from the U.K. seeking a way to select their baby’s sex, with 80
percent wanting girls. Asian and Australian women have been
traveling to Bangkok for the option,
according to Reuters.
Embryonic sex selection is done by pregenetic screening (PGS),
which involves biopsying fertilized eggs. This allows for
spotting genetic abnormalities as well as determining an embryo’s
sex. Using IVF, only embryos of the desired sex are implanted in
the mother; the procedure has a nearly 100 percent success rate.
The going rate from Newport Beach to Bangkok seems to be about
$15,000-$30,000.
In pop terms, the practice is known as “family balancing” or,
more creepily, “gender dreaming.” According to 2009 data from the
Center for Genetics and Society (the most recent data I could
find), five countries prohibit it for any reason: Austria, New
Zealand, South Korea, Switzerland, and Vietnam. Thirty-one
countries prohibit it for “social or non-medical reasons,”
including Australia, Belgium, China, France, Germany, India, Italy,
Russia, Spain, and the U.K. South Africa permitted the practice
until 2012, when a law made
choosing a child’s sex “except in the case of serious sex
linked or sex limited genetic conditions” a criminal offence.
Sex selection was banned in Britain under the 1990 “Human
Fertilisation and Embryology Act”, which says assisted reproduction
can’t involve “any practice designed to secure that any resulting
child will be of one sex rather than the other”. The Act also
forbids “testing embryos for the purpose of establishing their sex”
unless there is genetic likelihood of a serious, gender-related
medical condition. One Welsch woman going by the pseudonym Stacey
has been pushing
to change the laws in the UK, after having three boys
before seeing a fertility specialist in America and having a
girl.
In the United States, pre-implementation sex selection has been
possible since 2001. (Read Ron Bailey
writing about it here at the time.) American law remains
quiet on the subject, as does the law in Thailand and several South
American (Argentina, Brazil, Columbia, Ecuador) and Middle Eastern
countries (Egypt, Jordan). According to
the Middle East Monitor, embryonic sex
selection is a growing trend in the United Arab Emirates
and Egypt. Israel recently amended its policy to allow non-medical
sex selection if a family already has four children of one
sex.
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