Experts welcome moves to outlaw gender choice

MOVES to prevent couples being allowed to choose the sex of their baby for reasons other than medical concerns were welcomed in Britain yesterday by doctors, fertility experts and ethics watchdogs.

A Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) report concludes that sex selection should only be resorted to in order to avoid serious gender-linked disorders.

The authority says its research has shown that the vast majority of the British public is opposed to people being allowed to choose whether they have a boy or girl for social or "family balancing" reasons.

At the moment where the fresh sperm of a woman's partner is used for insemination, sperm sorting is not licensed or regulated by the HFEA.

However, licensing is necessary for clinics offering IVF, sperm storage or pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) where embryos are selected by sex before being returned to the mother.

In the US, MicroSort has the exclusive licence to be able to use sperm sorting for humans following the successful use of the technique on animals.

Sex selection is possible at three stages by abortion, through sperm sorting prior to conception and before an embryo created through IVF is transferred to a woman.

The full report is available at the HFEA's website www.hfea.gov.uk.