to think that gender selection should be legalised in the uk?

[ChocolateBiscuitCake]

I have three glorious boys. I would love to have a girl as well.

I really don't understand why PGD for gender selection is illegal in the UK. I completely accept that it should not be funded through the nhs, but can not see why couples can not pay privately.

You are not choosing eye colour etc, simply the gender of your child to balance your family dynamic.

If ivf couples are allowed to pick/choose/freeze embryos, why is PGD illegal?

Aibu to think that it should be legal in this country? I would not be trying to create a 'superior race', just balance our family with a girl - a daughter for me and DH and a sister for my sons.

Having gone through ivf more times than I care to mention myself, I dont think it would be that easy. I am not an embyologist, but hopefully I can explain as far as I understand it.

Each ivf cycle aims to collect between 6-10 eggs (if the numbers go up too high, the quality can go down). Fertilisation is attempted and it is very unusual to get all eggs fertilised, although it does happen. A good result might be 8 eggs collected, 6 fertilised. They then wait for two days to see which if any of these develop and multiply good cells (and would be worth putting back and trying with).

PGD carried out for IVF (usually for health reasons) is done on the fertilised embryos. The embryos are graded and typically for ivf your consultant will put those back that are the highest grade. So you might have 4 embryos that are worth trying with if you were lucky, PGD for gender might lose at least half of those then the remainder (which may not be the higher quality ones) put back. IVF rates in the UK range from an averag of 25% to 50% depending on the clinic. The older you are, the more those rates drop.

Not sure if I have explained this well, but just trying to say, even if you were still in your twenties and super fertile, the ivf/PGD process might knock down your odds a little.

Interesting debate though. I have one DD and am pregnant again and I had my 20 week scan today and found out the gender and feel a bit weird about it. This thread has really helped me get some perspective, so grateful for that.

Sorry embryologist - good job I am not one as I cant even spell it!

If anyone thinks they will have an 'unwanted, second best child' they are not fit to be a parent in the first place.

WTF OP, re IVF couples getting to pick and choose?
Do you know anything about IVF?
I wasn't too happy having to choose IVF in the first place - pumped full of drugs, time off work, strangers sticking cameras into my vagina, an operation - oh and paying £5K for all that too.
But there is no picking and choosing embryos, by the IVF couple.
You pray / cross your fingers / whatever that you'll even get an embryo for your trouble / money.
The choosing, if you're lucky to have a choice, is done by the embryologist.
Our embryologist didn't have to make any choices as we only had two by the end of the process.
I have a wonderful girl. I wanted a boy (for reasons that having a girl has helped me totally overcome). You know what? I'd swap preferred gender for not having to go through the subfertility and IVF and cost.

I'm very sorry, but Hahahahahahaha!!! at the idea of a daughter being 'for you'!!!!

I was and still am my father's daughter. I get on well with my mum, she's a great woman, but my dad is still the one I really talk with. My DD is going the same way - I know she loves me, but gawd, Daddy is king in her world.

YABSoU - I can't even explain coherently how U! I'll leave it up to the more intelligent posters upthread, and keep having a good old laugh at your OP.

I don't think anyone here is saying that a mild desire for a particular sex is abhorrent. It's fairly natural to lean towards one or the other I'd say as when you imagine yourself with your future child you see them as a boy or girl rather than an androgynous blob. :o Presumably. Plenty of people have said that they wanted a girl and were a bit disappointed at first, etc. That is worlds apart (IMO) from 'grieving' for the other sex or demanding the option to choose, and the idea that they deserve the wanted sex, and going through massive medical intervention in order to get it, and the idea that the 'wrong' sex is intolerable (I am not aiming that at you OP, just summing up what lots of people say)

if you can't find joy in the child you get, gender selection is not the problem

YES

"If anyone thinks they will have an 'unwanted, second best child' they are not fit to be a parent in the first place."

This ^

I haven't read all the replies - I expect some of them would make me hopping mad. I will caveat this by saying that I have 2 boys and a girl (girl in the middle), so I can't be certain of how I would feel if I'd had all the same gender but I find the idea of gender selection extremely distasteful. I think of each of my children as a gorgeous, perfect individual and not as a 'girl' or a 'boy'. My boys are incredible - I can't imagine how anyone could possibly be disappointed with a boy, it makes me feel very sad.

Yes.

I admit to knowing nothing about the details of IVF, but I think the chance of multiple births is much higher, right? So theoretically you could have a girl and choose to select a boy second time round... But then end up with twin boys which would imbalance the perfect family again? (apologies if I've totally misunderstood)

I am wondering if the OP has read the recent fiction novel by Peter James "Perfect People".

Not having read the whole thread, sorry, I would say that we have no idea how nature balances the sexes and therefore we shouldn't intervene.

Only in societies where we accept a healthy child as expected do we start to want to manipulate the sex and as others have said where does this lead?

I haven't read the whole read, but wanted to ask Worra about the statement below:

I couldn't tell you how many Indian families I know...probably 100s and yet not one single one of them has a DD as an eldest child

Is this really true? You know 100s of Indian families with first born sons, but none with first born daughters? Which country is this in?

Do you think they aborted their first babies because they were girls?

I am strongly against gender selection, and tbh, don't see why the sex of the baby is routinely revealed during baby scans.

Surely this information can be mis-used? It is really so necessary to be told the sex of your baby before it's born? (I say this as a pregnant woman, and mother of 2 DDs)

In our family, the boys are autistic, Grandad, Uncle, Cousin, Half-Brother. I have one girl, one boy, I obviously knew it was a 'risk' having children, I carry the CF gene and the autism one by the looks of it!
In the 'ideal' world it would be great to pick and chose what sex the child is, I had an abusive childhood, and didn't really want a girl, I didn't have a great bond with my own Mother and am petrified dd is going to hate me when she is older, I am doing better with dd than I thought I would, I think we are given these children to challenge us! That is not a bad thing, I have ds with asd, and dd (nt) but I would not change neither of them for the world(however, I will not be having anymore children)

Years ago, I would have said YABU. Then I had 3 DC of the same gender and though I wouldn't change a hair on their heads, I yearned utterly for a DC of the other gender. I can't explain how deep and desperate that longing was - while all the time, loving and appreciating the children I have. So I would have said YANBU.

Later, I have come to realise that my family is wonderful as it is and I only get the odd twinge of the old longing. I think I kind of brainwashed myself (out of necessity) into talking up the benefits of the gender I have and playing up the disadvantages of the gender I don't - even though I know I'm doing it and dealing partly in stereotypes.

It's helped me anyway.

vanimal I am 1/2 Indian and know loads and loads of families with a first born girl.

Past abuse, issues with husband (worried son might turn out like him)

A daughter could turn out like husband

identify with girls better

All girls?

don't want to be a mil
and if your daughter married you would be what? And by the time she is grown up married couls be to a woman.

have a great relationship with my mom and would like the chance for the same.

And you couldn't with a son?

I'm confused - I have a "pigeon pair", but it's a fridge and freezer combo.

I'm also immensely privileged to be the mother of a wonderful little boy. Neither my husband or myself were bothered about gender, race, eye colour, hair colour, inherited characteristics etc, so we chose to adopt rather than try to reproduce. We accepted the first available child, and he's wonderful (and far better-looking than either of us.)

I don't get it.

As to whether our family is unbalanced, you'll have to ask our psychiatrist.......

I haven't got over the statement that it is possible to have a 'second best' child.'

I'm sure that the second best child will be fully aware they are second best as well. What a horrible thing to say.

for a minute I wondered what sort of children might be compared to a fridge freezer

I agree with all those who say easy access to gender selection techniques is a very disturbing idea. I can understand those who have several children of one sex wondering what it would be like to have the other. I can understand an initial disappointment even, but not to think through the iplications of such a move is very naive.

I live in Canada and here it is illegal to tell parents the sex of the fetus when undertaking early scans because there has been plenty of evidence that there are much higher abortion rates as a result (pretty much all of girls).

Having an 'unbalanced' family frankly doesn't really matter that much, but having an unbalanced society has hugely negative implications.

Blimey I work with families predominantly from India and Pakistan and many of them have first born girls. I genuinely have no noticed a strange gender imbalance
However as per my first post I have definately noticed an overt wish to have boys.