The advances in reproductive technology in the last generation have been astounding. Doctors are able to treat infertility in an unprecidented way. Many women who would not have been able to conceive just a few years ago now have renewed hope of holding a baby. Some couples are using the technology in a new way. They are choosing the gender of their babies.
Gender selection is the process of choosing the gender of the baby. It is not limited to infertile couples. People with more than one child are now electing to visit the local fertility clinic in an attempt to have a baby of the opposite sex. Couples with two or three girls may decide they don’t want to leave having a son to chance. The same is true of couples with several boys.
There are a few ways of doing gender selection. The most common way has been to separate the sperm in the lab. The male and female sperm are separated. If the couple wants a little girl, the sperm with an X chromosome are isolated. If the couple wants a boy, the sperm with the Y chromosome are used. The woman is then inseminated with the man’s sperm.
The results of sperm separation have been inconclusive. In many cases the couple conceives and gets the gender they want. It does not work for all couples. On average about seventy percent of couples find success with this method. For some, these odds are just not good enough.
Couples wanting better odds are now seeking in vitro fertilization treatments. These couples are paying a high price for the gender they want. The procedure works in a way that is similar to other in vitro treatments. The woman is given drugs to stimulate ovulation. When the eggs are ripe, they are retrieved from her body and fertilized in a lab.
Once the embryos are viable, a biopsy is taken. This is used to determine the chromosomes related to gender. From this process, the fertility specialist is able to determine which are male and which are female. Only the embryos of the gender selected by the couple are implanted. The success rate for this procedure appears to be much higher than with sperm separation.
There are ethical questions regarding gender selection. Most of these arguments are based on religion. A very religious couple may prefer to leave it in God’s hands. One of the ethical questions is what would happen to the embryos of the wrong gender. Other couples feel there is nothing wrong with using the current technology for this purpose. For these couples, it’s just one more tool in building the family of their dreams. Would you choose the gender of your baby?
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