IVF parents travel overseas to pick baby's sex

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".

However, it would breach people's rights to ban them from travelling overseas to have the procedure. If they did, she could understand Sydney IVF wanting to ensure they used a reputable provider. "But that doesn't make it any more ethical, it just makes it safer," she said.

The chief executive of Sydney IVF, Kylie de Boer, said that when the company had stopped offering sex selection in early 2005 families were left "devastated".

"These were people who loved children," she said. "They had a lot of children already and they wanted to have more."

She said the clinic still received about 15 phone calls a week from parents seeking the procedure, despite openly explaining on its website it was banned and the only option was to travel overseas.

Dr de Boer said when Sydney IVF had done the procedure clients were often mothers wanting a daughter.

"The desire for a mother-daughter relationship was very strong," she said.

She believed the decision was a highly personal one which should be made between doctors and patients.

"I think the guidelines are due for review and I think the guidelines are wrong,'' she said.

The medical director at Sydney IVF, Mark Bowman, said the sense of ''loss and grief'' felt by couples who could not conceive a child of the gender they desired was as strong as that felt by infertile couples.

The president of the Fertility Society of Australia, Peter Illingworth, did not have a problem with Sydney IVF providing sex selection overseas, so long as it complied with the rules of the country it operated in.

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," he said.

The National Health and Medical Research Council said the guidelines would be reconsidered after a legislative review into the use of human embryos. That review, chaired by the former Federal Court judge Peter Heerey, is open for submissions.

Why our next child must be a daughter

A couple who terminated twin boys conceived through IVF are fighting to choose the sex of their next child - because they want a girl.
In a case that raises the ethical question of sex selection, the couple have taken their fight to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal. They already have three sons and said they now want to have a girl after their baby daughter died.
An independent panel, known as the Patient Review Panel, rejected the couple's bid to choose the gender of their next child using IVF. They now want that decision overturned. The tribunal, which ruled it has the power to review the earlier decision, will hear the case in March.
The couple said they had made the decision to terminate the twin boys but could not continue to have unlimited numbers of children.
If their bid to have a daughter fails, they said they would go to US so they can conceive a girl.
The woman - in her 30s - said she loved her sons but would do anything to have a daughter. "After what we have been through we think we are due for a bit of luck," the man said.
"We know we definitely won't be replacing her in any way, but want the chance to have the baby girl we don't have."
According to Victorian law, sex selection is banned unless it is necessary to avoid the risk of transmission of a genetic abnormality or disease or the Patient Review Panel has approved such using of an embryo.
All IVF clinics in Australia also subscribe to a code of ethics, including that they stay within National Health and Medical Research Council guidelines which say sex selection should not be done except to reduce the transmission of a serious genetic condition.
The man said sex selection should be determined on a case-by-case basis. "Girls will go and get abortions and terminate when they know it's not the right sex," he said. "That's the reality.
"We think it's our right to have a chance to do it. It's ridiculous that sex selection is illegal, actually."
Australian IVF pioneer Gab Kovacs said he could not understand why the couple should be banned from having a girl.
"I can't see how it could possibly harm anyone," Professor Kovacs said.
"Laws should be made to protect people from things that are going to damage them. Why should we make this illegal? Who is this going to harm if this couple have their desire fulfilled?"