Boys R Us

Couples will no longer be able to choose the sex of their baby in Sydney fertility clinics, after Australia’s highest ethics authority ruled the procedure was not in the interests of resulting children.

But critics say the clampdown – which in effect ends non-medical sex selection in Australia – reflects religious and other partisan interests and does not represent public attitudes towards the increasingly popular procedure.

The medical director of IVF Australia, Michael Chapman, confirmed the group’s member clinics would no longer accept new patients seeking the procedure, but said he believed the technique still had merit.

"I’m concerned that the views of the ethics committee aren’t necessarily representative of larger groups in the community," he said.

Professor Chapman said he thought it was reasonable to balance the sexes of children in a family.

The procedure involves fertile couples undergoing an in vitro fertilisation cycle so that their embryos can be screened for their sex and other genetic characteristics.

Mark Bowman, the deputy medical director of Sydney IVF, said his clinic was also turning away new sex selection patients. "They feel aggrieved that an arbitrary decision has been made. They’re wondering why their autonomy has been taken away from them," he said. Prospective patients were serious and sincere about the make-up of their families and paid the full cost of the procedure, about $13,000. [Source]

More reasons why the Catholic Church is right about IVF. Being serious and sincere is all it takes to choose who gets to live and who gets to die. Genetic baby Russian Roulette. One of the methods they use for sex selection is by first using sperm separated by a sex selection process and then used to cause fertilization. The "resulting embryos" (human beings) are then tested for common genetic defects and for the "gender component." to achieve the proper "gender outcome." The embryos guilty of being of the wrong sex are either cryopreserve or disposed of. They are given not only given the cold shoulder but a frozen body to go with it. Those lucky enough to be of the right sex are implanted (usually more than one) hoping that one might survive in true darwinist fashion. It is a sad irony of couples desiring children that are able to rationalize the fate of the other children created. "Oh but it’s only an embryo." Well as a former embryo myself I take offense at that.

On the positive side seeing a governmental authority concerning ethics actually made a ethical decision. That the slippery slope of the results of IVF was somewhat abated. Children use to be a gift. Now it is a gift that must be opened before it will be accepted. A gift that is returned to the store if not to their satisfaction. That children will be looked at like buying a new car. "Does that model come in anything else besides brown hair?" "I was hoping to have one with a stronger heart under the hood this time around."

I recently re-read Asimov’s Robot series and the planet of Solaria struck me more this time. On Solaria no children are born naturally and they are not raised by their parents. Parents do not know who their children grow up to be. They use a method like IVF and then have a doctor with a staff that takes care of the children. This job was considered by Solarian’s to be less than desirous though it had to be done, kind of how we look at garbage collectors. In the plot a father who knew who is daughter and made efforts to contact her was considered deviant behavior by the society. My first reading of the book years ago this whole concept struck me as being unbelievable, now I am not so sure. The idea of children as needed commodities that you don’t want to have interfere with your lifestyle is already among us.