'A leading IVF clinic is helping clients choose the sex of their baby by sending them to an overseas clinic it co-owns, avoiding Australian rules which allow the practice only for medical reasons.
Sydney IVF, which has several clinics in NSW as well as in Canberra, Perth and Tasmania, is part-owner of Superior ART, a Thai clinic that will provide IVF for ''family balancing'' - when families with children of one gender are seeking another child of the opposite sex.
It costs $11,000 including flights and accommodation, a spokesman for Sydney IVF said.
Australian fertility clinics are prohibited from offering sex selection for non-medical reasons by national ethical guidelines by which they must abide to be accredited.
But Sydney IVF maintains it is not doing anything wrong, arguing the rules banning the procedure are hurting Australian families.
The National Health and Medical Research Council's health ethics committee developed the guidelines. Its chairwoman, Sandra Hacker, said Australians generally believed parents should not be allowed to choose their child's gender to 'balance' out their family.
'The right to life should not be determined by gender,' she said. 'There is a view that you should be happy with whatever gender you bring into the world, as long as they are well and happy'.
Read the above Sydney Morning Herald article in full here: http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life/ivf-parents-travel-overseas-to-pick-babys-sex-20110307-1bl9u
While sex selection remains illegal in many countries, including Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand, the process is available in the US.
One US couple, singer John legand and Chrissy Tiegen, have made their choice to select a daughter from available embryos very public, igniting debate on social media.
'For Chrissy Teigen, deciding to have a girl was all about her husband John Legend.
“I think I was most excited and allured by the fact that John would be the best father to a little girl,” Teigen told PEOPLE. “That excited me. It excited me to see … just the thought of seeing him with a little girl. I think he deserves a little girl. I think he deserves that bond. A boy will come along. We’ll get there too, so it’s not like we really have to pick.”
Teigen chose the gender of her upcoming baby while undergoing in vitro fertilization treatments.
Read Chrissy's story and excerpts from her Twitter feed here: http://thegrio.com/2016/02/25/chrissy-teigen-girl-john-legend-daughter/
The SMH article cited above, concludes by saying:
'Public debate on whether the national guidelines were right and enforceable was needed.
What is important is the community view about these matters, not necessarily the views of IVF specialists'.
So...what do you think? Should people be allowed to choose the sex of their child?
It is proposed that it should be permissible to use IVF to choose the sex of your baby