Aussie boy: “Hey Ma, where are we going on vacation this year?”
Aussie mom: “We are doing something very special. We are going to circumvent the laws of our country and we are going to travel all the way to Thailand, stay in a fancy hotel for a week, and buy you a little sister!”
Aussie boy: “Good onya, Ma!”
If you are an Aussie couple dying to have a girl or boy, forget about the ban on sex-selective IVF and let Global Health Travel of Australia set it all up for you! Airfare, luxury accommodations and the child of your choice.
No joke. From News.com.au
Global Health Travel is offering baby sex-selection trips to Thailand and Malaysia.
For $12,000, couples can spend 11 days in a luxury Bangkok hotel while they have IVF treatment to choose a baby boy or girl.
Cells are taken from the three-day-old embryo for gender screening, and a boy or girl is implanted before the pregnant woman flies home a few days later.
“Some people bring their whole family and make a holiday of it,” Global Health Travel managing director Cassandra Italia said yesterday.
Of course this “news” story comes at a time when there is tremendous pressure to repeal Australia’s ban on sex-selective IVF. At least Australia is reasonable enough to have a ban. Many couples come to the U.S. for sex-selective IVF because we are the wild west of reproductive technologies with nary a federal regulation.
But what is the harm with sex-selective IVF anyway? According to IVF practitioner Dr. Gab Kovacs:
“It doesn’t harm anybody else so there’s no reason it should be prohibited,” he said.
The reason I put “news” in quotes to describe this piece is because it is simply propaganda. Had Natasha Bita done any actual reporting she would have pointed out that this does actually harm somebody.
Many articles on sex-selective IVF make it sound like IVF docs magically only make embryos of a particular gender. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In reality, embryos of both sexes are mass-produced, cells are taken from them and tested to see which are the “right” gender. Any embryos that do not make the genetic cut are put in the deep freeze, tossed in the trash, or given to researchers to rip open.
But that doesn’t really matter when a couple is desperate for that little girl with pretty pigtails or that strapping young lad with a powerful swing. The perfect accessory to “complete” the family. A purchase worth making just like that family van or kitchen remodel. Harsh? Maybe, if a mother who purchased her daughter hadn’t said it first. Megan Simpson, who used sex-selective IVF to have a girl, recently told Slate:
“My husband and I stared at our daughter for that first year. She was worth every cent. Better than a new car, or a kitchen reno.”
So what about the chosen children that are lucky enough to be transferred to their mother’s womb and survive to birth? This doesn’t hurt them at all right?
Well, they had a biopsy performed on them when they were only days old. Studies in mice have shown this procedure called preimplantation genetic diagnosis or (PGD) has long term effects. From American Medical Network:
Ran Huo, Qi Zhou and colleagues used a mouse model to examine how a blastomere biopsy, as the key manipulation during the PGD procedure, could affect fetal, neonatal and adult development.
They found that there were no differences in embryo development prior to uterine implantation in the biopsied and control groups, which is consistent with results found in humans. However, following implantation, successful births from biopsied embryos were significantly lower than in controls.
Following birth, the authors tracked many physical and behavioral properties; the two groups of mice were similar in many respects, though mice in the biopsied group on average had higher body weight and poorer memory in maze tests. To get a more detailed picture of these memory defects, the authors performed a proteomic analysis of adult mouse brains; 36 proteins displayed significant differences between biopsied and control groups, 17 of which are closely associated with neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimers and Down Syndrome.
The authors suggest that the developing nervous system may be sensitive to blastomere biopsy, and that more studies should be performed to address any possible long-term adverse effects of PGD to ensure its safety.
These researchers are calling for more research into the safety of PGD because, in mice, a biopsy of the embryo caused lower birth rates and markers for neurological disorders.
In addition, the Fertility Authority “busts the myth” that PGD is no big deal. Dr. Michael Tucker, embryologist, calls PGD is an “invasive procedure…that should not be undertaken lightly.”
Lightly. What is lightly? It seems everything nowadays is serious enough to warrant experimentation on the next generation, including wanting a “balanced” family with both ballet shoes and footballs in the closet.
Of course even if everything goes right, is sex-selective IVF still harmless? Well, what happens if the boy you paid for doesn’t like sports? Or the girl you dropped several thousand on hates dolls and dresses?
As Marcy Darnovsky, from the progressive Center for Genetics and Society, astutely comments:
“It’s high-tech eugenics. If you’re going through the trouble and expense to select a child of a certain sex, you’re encouraging gender stereotypes that are damaging to women and girls. …What if you get a girl who wants to play basketball? You can’t send her back.”
Totally harmless.
Rebecca Taylor blogs at Mary Meets Dolly
May 8, 2013 at 11:33 pm
Right now, it's gender and avoidance of genetic diseases. Regardless of what Catholics think, it's hard to argue against ridding of diseases. Especially, against a tone deaf majority that doesn't mind destroying embryos, as long as they're human.
But once that's normal…then comes..aw, it's only hair color, eye color…and yes, all tht effort wasted…here comes skin color. Can't wait till that becomes vogue.
But we know it doesn't stop until…ya know, just see the movie GATTACCA then read Brave New World. It's about 95% of their playbook.
May 9, 2013 at 1:23 pm
Yes, but can they give the child back if he or she is not who they wanted?
May 9, 2013 at 6:30 pm
Thanks for finding this information and writing it up. Rebecca you are awesome. I hope this post makes people think instead of choosing IVF.
May 9, 2013 at 7:41 pm
…please, need accurate info?,
…in the US.
…is it true that there are approx 9 or 10 children that have genetic DNA from 3 biplogical parents, 2 moms and 1 dad?
…being studied like laboratory specimans?
….if true, this is beyond outrageous, monstrous and hideous!
May 9, 2013 at 9:14 pm
@Donna,
I don't think they are being "studied like lab specimens" but yes there are a handful of kids in the U.S. that were engineered to have the genetic material of 2 women and 1 man. This was done back in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Read here:
http://www.marymeetsdolly.com/blog/index.php?/archives/1195-The-411-on-Daily-Mails-Worlds-first-GM-babies-born.html
Scientists in Oregon are also creating embryos with 3 genetic parents to "cure" mitochondrial disease. Read here:
http://www.ncregister.com/site/article/three-parent-embryo-modifying-future-generations
May 10, 2013 at 12:41 am
…Thank You, Rebecca,
….read both articles,…still in shock and horror!
….everything about this is disturbing and very upsetting!
….I can say with absolute certainty that the "extra" genes these kids manifest are active and not dormant.
….chemical sub cellular messaging "is" going on.
….latent IVF anomalies and outcomes yet to be seen in future generations.
….no wonder heaven is upset!
….Regina Caeli, help us!
May 10, 2013 at 4:29 pm
As much as I hate the "place an order for a baby at the doctor's" mindset…. I do have to wonder why they don't just use the sperm sorting that dairies use. (basically, female sperm is heavier, so they use centrifugal force) It's not 100%, but it's a lot more reasonable than removing a significant portion of the developing body to test for DNA.
May 11, 2013 at 6:29 pm
Unfortunately, it is NOT avoidance of the diseases – quite tot the contrary – IVF by itself is risky, since the children born from have much higher chances of all sorts of problems and disorders, learning disadvantage to be the easiest.
Normally up to 50% of natural pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion – not even noticed often – exactly becasue of the survival of the fittest norm. Since IVF implantation is alwasy artificially supported by very high doses of hormones and other methods, this natural selection is impaired. And the children born ( if they are being born) have the very wide variety of abnormalities. Totally healthy children are an exception.
May 12, 2013 at 4:01 am
Exactly!
Created germ lines, females, supposedly, are able to pass those genes onto offspring.
Mutation pathologies and anomalies waiting to manifest!
I'm really outraged over this!!!
WHO ARE THE GUINEA PIGS!!!
Little boys and little girls….;(
May 14, 2013 at 1:16 am
"The authors suggest that the developing nervous system may be sensitive to blastomere biopsy." – Nothing but a clump of cells, eh?
"If you’re going through the trouble and expense to select a child of a certain sex, you’re encouraging gender stereotypes that are damaging to women and girls." – I don't necessarily agree with this statement, although I completely agree with the underlying reasoning – that parents who would employ these evil means to produce their desired children, will have a God-like or at least slave-owner-like expectations of control over their expensive creations, human beings though they may be. That would still be wrong even if the purchasing parents had entirely progressive and egalitarian views of gender roles, and perhaps only wanted a daughter for the sake of family symmetry or any other necessarily trite reason. "You can’t send her back" – well, if this is truly "high-tech eugenics" (which it is), and if the child's value can be measured in terms of a new car or kitchen remodel, perhaps sending her back to Thailand (or eliminating her entirely) is not too far off, should she prove an unsatisfactory purchase. Heck, if her blastomere biopsy causes neurological problems to show up early enough, does anyone doubt that she will be aborted? (Aborted by a very angry customer, I should say – let's not forget who really matters here!)
Foxfier, "female sperm is heavier" – it took me a minute to figure that one out! (to other comment readers – it means sperm cells with an X, instead of a Y, chromosome).