Fertility clinic in US gets green light for sex selection trial

[seriousstan]

A clinical trial into the effects of allowing couples to choose the sex of their babies has been given the go-ahead at a US fertility clinic. The controversial study was given the green light by an ethics committee after nine years of consultation. The purpose of the study is to find out how cultural notions, family values and gender issues feed into a couple's desire to choose the gender of their child.
Fertility clinics already use a technique called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis to select healthy embryos if a child has a high risk of inheriting a genetic disease, but the technique can also be used to select the sex of embryos for couples having IVF treatment. In many countries, including Britain, using PGD for family balancing is banned.
Fertility specialists at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas have already received 50 inquiries from couples about joining the trial, according to the journal Nature today. Only couples who have already had one child and want another of the opposite sex are eligible. As well as assessing the factors that contribute to a couple's decision to select the sex of their next baby, doctors will monitor the health of the children and any social issues that arise in their families as they grow up.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1601160,00.html

[HockeyMom]

1. We had two daughters

Made no difference to either me or my husband. I can remember so many times that people used to ask us when we were going to "try" for a boy. We told them, "NO, We are NOT." We wanted two kids and didn't care what their gender was - two girls or two boys. So what?

To each his/her own, but I find this concept very sexist.

[Ravenseye]

5. Depends

I can trace my ancestry back via my family tree over 1500 years and sorry to say it's a patrilineal family tree. I love my daughter and she's my favorite person in the world, but my wife and I are going to keep trying for a boy because I don't feel like being the schmuck who ended a 1500 year line.

[Wilms]

10. How would you be a "schmuck" not over-populating planet?

And how would the line end (except for the last name).

[Ravenseye]

17. It's a patrilineal line

Just because she's a female, my daughter is part of the family and will always be so, just like my sister, my grandmother, my aunts...heck they're the heart and soul of my family.

But the line has always been that way, and I dont' feel like being the one that changes it. The name IS important.

Also I don't jive with the overpopulation game. If we all switch to vegetarian living, the U.S. alone could feed what..20 billion?

[politicat]

23. It's not about food or space... it's about water.

And that's getting scarcer.

I kept my birth name. Should I ever (dog forbid) have a child, that child would have my name. I'm 30. Your daughter's likely to grow up in a world where it's not just accepted but normal for women to keep their birth names.

[Tesha]

29. Tell her to keep her name. And to name her kid with it.

This seems like a better solution than bringing yet another person
into the world, and especially for such a weak reason.

Tesha

[Ravenseye]

34. Well we're bringing more either way

My wife and I want to have at least 3 kids. Hopefully I'll get a boy and one more girl out of it. Our reason is that we love our daughter so much we can't imagine not having more.

As far as overpopulation arguments, spare me.

[Tesha]

36. Spare you? Spare me! Spare the planet!

But no, your name is more important.

Ahh well...

Tesha

[Ravenseye]

42. The planet is fine

Overpopulation is something to be worried about in an abstract sense, but having 2 or 3 kids in the U.S. isn't the worry right now, and probably won't be for some time.

As far as our overall food and water production, we're not even close to tapping that out (as long as we stop wasting it in stupid ways...eating beef...watering lawns in southern california, etc)

Better idea. How bout nobody has kids and we stop existing as a species. We live in a country where the overall growth rate is practically even. Most other modern countries it's either even, or even declining. Overpopulation just isn't a problem in modern industrialized countries.

yes the whole thing is our problem, but we won't solve overpopulation if we only have 1 kid. Our having only 1 or 2 children will in no way affect how many kids someone in India, or Zimbabwe has, and those are the places where overpopulation is straining the resources.

Just illogical.

[Tesha]

48. Energy, my friend, energy.

You think we produce enough food and water in this country?

Bzzzt, wrong!

What we do is convert petroleum into edible food and potable water.

(No, of course I don't mean it literally!)

When the cheap energy runs out, look for millions of Americans to
starve, die of thirst, or be killed in the riots that ensue as we
all struggle for the meager resources that can reach us.

Sans cheap energy, the carrying capacity of even a vast place like
America is pretty damned limited,a nd the population will have to be
spread a lot more thinly than it is today, so that everyone is much
nearer arable land.

This *IS NOT A PROBLEM THAT IS FAR OFF* in some Malthusian hell of
a distant future. This problem is coming to your kids and mine, and
right soon. It's a shame you're making such a poor choice for them.

Tesha

[oldcoot]

14. Women can and often do keep their last names

If your only reason for wanting a son is that you are worried about the family line, you may want to reconsider. Even if you do not have a son, your line may not end. Your daughter may choose to keep her last name even if she gets married. She may even pass her last name to her children.

[Ravenseye]

19. not the same

Sorry. Just isn't the same in my head. I'm a traditionalist in some ways, and this is one of them. Maybe it's because it's been ingrained into me from birth. I'm the only son of an only son, of a son who had one brother who had no kids, of...etc.

If i dont' have a boy, the name dies for generations back. My entire wing of the family would essentially end. I'm not going to do that.

[oldcoot]

21. Having a son is no guarantee that your name will continue

Your son may choose not to have children or he might decide to take his spouse's name (I personally do know a man who took his wife's name). Although you may be a traditionalist, your children may not be traditionalists.

[Ravenseye]

26. And That's Fine

If my children choose not to be traditionalists that's their choice. My choice though is to be one. :)

[Darth_Kitten]

32. Sorry, that still seems like a very weak reason to bring another...

child onto the planet. :(

Has your daughter realized what an apparent disappointment she is to both parents?
Sorry to sound cruel, but kids can pick up on things.

[Ravenseye]

33. Whatever

We actually want a bunch of kids, maybe 3 or 4, just because they're great. My daughter is the joy of my life and my love for her has nothing to do with this. You just don't understand the situation.

[Tesha]

49. Actually, I think the previous poster understands the situation better...

Actually, I think the previous poster understands the situation
better than you do, and I was having the same thought ("I wonder
how the daughter will feel when she finds out why her brother(s)
were conceived?") as that poster, I just didn't decide to pursue
that angle earlier.

Tesha

[Ravenseye]

50. No, neither of you get it

[Darth_Kitten]

58. Trust me, we get it.

Feel blessed you have a child.

[Darth_Kitten]

57. I don't doubt that you love her....

But having a kid to carry on the family name? Come on...

[Caoimhe]

59. Agreed

I took my husband's name because it was shorter and easier to spell, not because I felt obligated to help him pass on his family name. What a joke. People need to open their eyes... it's almost 2006!

I feel bad for this guys daughter too. I'd hate to be a disappointment because I couldn't pass down my dad's name for some freaky reason that had everything to do with women being CHATTEL and nothing to do with reality.

[TheDebbieDee]

16. 1500 years? Really? Just curious, but could you........

PM me the region of the world that your earliest ancestor can be traced?

As I said, I'm just curious.

[leesa]

30. What nonsense! You certainly are special, aren't you.

[Ravenseye]

35. You're special too...

...we all are, but it isn't nonsense.

[Bridget Burke]

39. So--supply the "Y" chromosomes.

The ball is in YOUR court.

[Ravenseye]

41. Oh, no question

As my wife says, "you want a boy, it's up to you."

[Samurai_Writer]

37. Do you know how hurtful this is going to be to your daughter?

I had the EXACT same thing happen in my family. My father didn't want to be the last of his family name. He and my mom had FOUR GIRLS before having a boy. He would tell people "We just had to keep trying until we got a boy!" In FRONT of his daughters. Do you know how demoralizing that is, how it can affect a child's self image and self esteem. Like his FOUR daughters were not good enough -- only 'the boy' mattered.

I hope you rethink your position and have x amount of children because you want CHILDREN, not because you want a BOY.

Still hurt decades later,
Bella

PS. My brother, who was to be the 'savior' of our family name, got married at 35 and had... a daughter. So if she takes her husband's name, or names her children after THEIR father, the name dies anyway.

[Ravenseye]

43. Wish you read all my posts

I love my daughter, and want children no matter what. My wife comes from a large family and wants to have at least three kids, two girls and one boy. Mostly because she never had a sister. Either way though we want to have the kids because we love our first one so much and just imagine the joy more will bring into our lives.

As far as your family, I'm sorry if you are scarred by it. All I know is that my family it's not that way. The women in my family are actually the ones pressing for a boy the most.

"Oh I hope you have a girl. Girls are so much better than boys. Oh wait, no you need to have a boy first. Have a boy, then all girls."

Same from my sister and my female cousins.

It's just something most people can't comprehend because they don't come from the type of family I do. I've had multiple in person conversations with people and they just have a hard time getting it. It's a different dynamic than American families.

I know the name may die someday, but I really would like a son to pass it down. It won't mean I don't love my daughter any less.

[Samurai_Writer]

46. I did read all your posts.

And it doesn't matter WHO is pressing you for a bo y, or what they are saying. I find your 'I MUST have a boy to pass down my family name' just plain sexist. Hope you don't instill those 'traditional' (another word for patriarchal, keep women in their place) values on your children.

[Dulcinea]

53. Hear, hear!

We also have 2 daughters.

Neither my husband nor I want any more kids.

People also used to ask me if we were going to "try for a boy." That used to make me so mad! As if somehow 2 beautiful, healthy girls were somehow not good enough! What sexist crap! :rant:

[rodeodance]

2. this is shocking to me.

[salin]

3. I agree.

[LeftyMom]

4. I have no personal desire to do this, but it should be legal

I could see myself doing the shettles method or timing conception to favor gender though if I had a stong preference. In the absence of a clear medical reason I can't see why anybody'd go to the bother and expense.

For what it's worth, births from traditional IVF procedures are overwhelmingly female (because female embryos are hardier) so this could result in a more natural and balanced male to female ratio in IVF births.

[Straight Shooter]

6. My parents had 3 boys and then I came along.

No one ever mentioned whether they wanted four children or were they waiting to have a girl. I like to think they saved the best for last :)

All kidding aside, the gender of a child is a very big deal for some people. I think anyone, however, at the heart of it all wants a healthy child who will live a fulfilling and productive life. Except for people like Barb and George H.W. of course.

[DRoseDARs]

7. As long as it stays nothing more than a research project...

...no harm in that. I'll wait until the research study has concluded, but I suspect that the findings won't be encouraging.

[Shallah Kali]

8. I remember something like this some years ago that didn't have limits

It was dateline nbc or some newsmagazine type program covering fertility clinics. Couples who wanted to increase the odds of having a child of a certain sex would go there. Men would donate their sperm and it was put in a spinning device (centrafuge?) and the male chromosone sperm would tend to go one way in the vial and female sperm the other. The women would then get treated with the sperm. AT the time most people going there wanted boys. I wonder if this is still being done.....

[LeftyMom]

12. That's microsort

They still do that.

[KittyWampus]

9. So Science Is Now Enabling The Control Freaks. This Won't End Well

[Divernan]

11. US fertility clinics are the Wild West of the medical frontier

Back when the first US fertility clinics were being planned, the extreme right religious faction in the US Congress managed to boycott any government grants, because they considered some forms of infertility treatment to constitute abortion. However, these conservatives underestimated the extreme obsession of women in the US to have babies (and not adopt). Money was no object, the docs quickly learned, and they could easily finance the clinics with no govt. grants or assistance, and make huge profits. The side effect of no govt. grants was that there is NO, I repeat ABSOLUTELY NO legal oversight of the practices of these clinics.

They function on the theory that "success rate" is what draws their clients, i.e, "x'" percent of the women we treat become pregnant/have a child. There are no controls on the amounts of fertility drugs which are given to these women to stimulate egg production. In the US, once a drug has been approved by the FDA for a particular pupose, all doctors can prescribe that drug for any purpose and in any amount - even if it was never tested under those circumstances. No govt. agency is keeping track of the mortality rates for women given these drugs, or the numbers and kinds of cancers triggered by these drugs, or what the long term effect of these drugs is on the children conceived after their mothers have had these massive amts. of drugs in their bodies for many months. As one example, I cite the woman I know who got married in her mid-30's and went to a clinic. First they never examined her thoroughly enough to discover that her Fallopian tubes were blocked by scar tissue. They assumed her infertile condition was the result of not ovulating, and prescribed massive doses of drugs. She was sick from the first day she started taking them and continued to take them for some six months. Finally (duh!) some doctor figured out her tubes were blocked and they went another route by which she conceived twins. She was off the drugs now but continued to be extremely ill throughout her pregnancy. Within months of having her children she was diagnosed with four different kinds of cancer, and died within a few months. I researched this issue when the fertility clinic lobbyists proposed legislation forcing the health insurance companies to cover all costs of every known fertility treatment. These clinics are huge profit makers and they don't give a shit about the health of mothers and babies. But they are expert at playing on the insecurities of women who feel their lives have no meaning or worth unless they bear children.
Note that the article refers to "an ethics committee". As best I can tell, the committee is affiliated with a Texas university med. school. I'm sure the fertility clinics gave huge contributions to the med. school. The whole thing stinks!

[KittyWampus]

13. US Fertility Clinics Are BIG Bucks, Indeed. And It's Odd To Compare That

to Women's Health Clinics that Fundies like to bash as being profitable abortion mills.

[MountainLaurel]

18. You're dead on about the lack of oversight

I read a great book a few months ago about the history of in vitro fertilization that details exactly what happened. In an intereting twist, one of the early ethics committees that NIH tried to convene was picketed by a group of protesters from a DC-area Catholic school. Their student leader: Maria Shriver, now known as Mrs. Gropenator.

[Ilsa]

15. I have a friend who has had either six or seven boys, and then a

girl, finally. They had always intended on having lots of kids, BTW.

[ECH1969]

20. Its weird how thing come out

[anitar1]

22. Does anyone remember what happened in China?

They did this for years and ended up with an overpopulation of males. The males could not find wives , which has made them very unhappy. I think, that in their culture the son and his wife look after the parents in their old age. Son has no wife to care for the parents so their choice has backfired. There are still problems, but news must be more censored now. The U.S. will do exactly the same thing. But here, it will provide ample cannon fodder for wars.

[LisaL]

24. I am sorry, but "they" didn't do it for years.

Millions of chinese didn't go to fertility Drs. to make sure they get a son.

[smirkymonkey]

28. No, they just killed the female infants.

Nice.

[Bunny]

45. Yep. The one-child-only policy.

Female infanticide took care of that little problem. They got their precious sons, but then there weren't enough wives for those sons.

[Dogmudgeon]

25. Where does it stop?

"We should outlaw baby sex-selection because it's unnatural."
"We should outlaw contraception because God disapproves of it."
"We should outlaw abortion because it's murder."
"We should outlaw beans because they make me fluff."
"We should outlaw homeopathic, herbal, and vitamin sales because they're pseudoscientific."
"We should outlaw cryonic freezing because it's icky."
"We should outlaw drugs because they're bad."
"We should outlaw saying bad things about the President because it makes our enemies feel better."
"We should outlaw meat because it's a form of killing."
"We should outlaw porn because women don't like it."
"We should outlaw open-source software because it's socialism."
"Because I'm Christian. ... Because I'm Female. ... Because I'm Jewish. ... Because I'm Pagan. ... Because I'm Politically Incorrect™. ...

... Because I'm Special."

--p!

[lakemonster11]

27. Most of the time I hear about sex-selection in preventing the

transmission of hereditary diseases. This usually means that affected couples are looking to have girls who, if they inherit the "bad" gene, will only become carriers, rather than boys who will actually develop the disease in question.

This application doesn't bother me at all. In fact, I think it's very responsible.

The idea of family-balancing seems okay, too (not that it is entirely without the risk of creating an imbalanced society).

I personally would prefer that couples that want at least one boy and one girl have the option of having only two children than to have seven in the hopes that they'll finally get that girl/boy. (Of course they can have seven if they really want to).

However, if a couple just wants one child and wants it to be of a certain sex, I get more uncomfortable. On the personal level, it's not the worst thing in the world, but I do worry a lot more about the implications to society.

If a couple wants a bunch of children that are the same sex (excepting the hereditary disease case mentioned above), it definitely bothers me. That sort of decision seems like a recipe for disaster (and seems kind of suspicious, frankly).

[tanyev]

31. Where is the fundie outrage over this?

Guess too many of them are lined up for their chance to get a boy child.

[MountainLaurel]

40. Don't you know it. n/t

[Igel]

54. No fetus, no baby, no outrage.

To get a fundie outraged at this, they already have to be outraged at IV fertilization. This is just a specific subclass, one that's irrelevant to the larger issue.

[SoCalDem]

38. Just in time for the '06 election.. How convenient

Foot, meet bullet..

[dr.strangelove]

44. I'm okay with this

I don't think I would use this service, but if someone else wants to, go for it.

[Dark]

47. This is wrong. There is a reason why it's about a 50-50 shot for

having a girl or boy.

Want to see what happens when people can choose what gender their kid is? Look at China.

[LeftyMom]

52. but this is for IVF patients

They don't have a 50-50 shot, thier births are overwhelmingly female both because hardier female conceptions are more likely to survive IVF and because the older and marginally fertile populations who recieve fertility treatments tend toward female births anyhow. If this sex selection technique (others are already used in IVF when needed) skews the birth rate toward males as some are afraid, that likely will just bring the IVF birth rate closer to human norms.

I don't see what the problem is, we've had high and low tech sex selection techniqes for years and haven't run into a China-like skewed male to female ratio or some GATTACA-esque baby selection trend. :shrug:

[FrankX]

55. Only the wealthy will be able to pick the sex of their child.

[LeftyMom]

56. People of normal fertility can do so without techology

check out http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060937645/104-7976734-9865558?v=glance or http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/038548562X/104-7976734-9865558?v=glance

and most people don't, so I don't see what the big worry is. :shrug: We don't live in a society where there's a huge economic or social advantage to having one gender of child over the other, so this sort of technology won't result in some China-like situation where gender ratios are badly skewed.

[FrankX]

51. Many who want one child will chose a boy and stop there.