Playing God: Gender Selection

“Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg, director of The Fertility Institutes in Los Angeles and New York City, has for several years offered a fertility procedure allowing affluent couples to choose their baby's gender. [Gender] selection, outlawed in many countries, is legal in the United States: Steinberg’s clinics have treated ‘thousands’ of couples from India, China, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and 142 other nations. ... Steinberg admitted his clinics have recently seen a ‘huge growth’ of Chinese clients. Almost all of them--98 percent—ask for a boy. So do most Indian couples. Both countries ban [Gender] selection, but it’s practiced illegally because of cultural preferences for boys. Several U.S. clinics perform [gender] selection using preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD): Doctors obtain the couple's sperm and eggs, mix them in a dish, and implant only a few embryos of the desired gender. Steinberg typically performs PGD by fertilizing eight or nine eggs and implanting just one embryo, discarding or freezing the others.”

(“Boy Crazy,” World, Sept. 21, 2012)

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