Gender Selection News

Australia may reconsider gender selection prohibition

Last year, Australian mums hoping to choose their baby's gender got a shock when the Australian Health Ethics Committee banned the use of IVF for family balancing.

Today, Australian fertility specialists are calling for a review of the ban, calling a similar review of sex selection options in the UK "refreshing and encouraging".

Sex selection is not done lightly and when it was done it was always for family balancing reasons.

I find it interesting that if you go to a dinner party and a pregnant woman and her partner with three boys are there and they announce they are having a girl, everyone is delighted for them. No one accuses them of devaluing their sons.

If the technology is used responsibly, we should allow people to make their own reproductive choices, and the Government should get out of the bedroom.

• Call for right to pick sex of babies
  The Australian

Published Aug 18 2005, 11:44 AM by Maureen

Comments

deanne said: Im all for gender selection in the case where you have 2 or more genders the same....I am a mum to 3 handsome boys and would love a girl to balance out our family.Most who disagree with gender selection I think are those who already have one of each and dont understand. August 19, 2005 9:59 PM

Emmerson said: I come from New Zealand and have two lovely sons, Australia was my one hope to try and concieve a girl through IVF. After two pregnancies with terrible morning sickness I felt that I didn't wan't to go through another unless it was a girl. That option has now been removed, I cannot concieve naturally through personal fear of it being another boy, and not knowing how to cope with my emotions. Now I get jealous when I see others with little girls and I do suffer depression believe it or not from this. They should reconsider as I do think that it can cause serious health issues for woman that do not have a child of either sex, emotionally and mentally. December 5, 2005 10:03 PM

About Maureen

In 1999, my two sons were 4 and 2 years old, and we were ready to have another baby. I hoped to have a daughter, and I turned to the Internet to search for ways of increasing the odds of conceiving a girl. I discovered the iVillage Gender Determination Board. On the board, I found information about at-home and high-tech sex selection methods, but more importantly, I discovered I wasn't alone. I was one among a legion of mothers who longed desperately for a daughter, keeping it a secret so others wouldn't think, wrongly, that we loved our sons less, and feeling guilty becuse we're not supposed to care if a baby's a boy or a girl, "as long as it's healthy". There were, of course, also mothers hoping just as much to add a son to their all-girl family.

After a lot of research and soul-searching, my husband I decided to try MicroSort. In the fall of 2000, I became pregnant on our first MicroSort attempt, by IUI. At 20 weeks of pregnancy, we discovered we were having twins, a boy and a girl! We were thrilled to have a daughter at last, and a new son to cherish too.

During my journey to conceive a daughter, I was so grateful for the support and information volunteered by others on the boards; mothers who didn't even know me, but were willing to help me, hope for me, and cry along with me, when there was no one I could turn to "in real life". I know that without being able to talk personally with women who had tried MicroSort, I would have never gone through with this daunting, complex procedure; and that we would have never had a daughter as part of our family.

Now that my journey's finished, this Web site is just my way of giving some of that help back, to you.