IVF - GENDER SELECTION? RIGHT OR WRONG??

[kittylette]

My friend has just given birth to her third son a few weeks ago, and whilst visiting mentioned she would be having IVF next time, confused as she has no trouble concieving i asked 'why'?

Her reply was, i want a girl next time. Ill have IVF and have the frozen embies sent to a clinic in Spain where they will be genetically screened and the girls seperated from the boys. Ill then have only female embryoes replaced - itll cost around £6000 for the treatment.

I was secretly very shocked, and at first i didnt see the harm but the more i think about it the more i am sadened!

During IVF for 'fertility problems' the embryoes are screened yes, the best ones are put back - but to me that is keeping in line with nature, survival of the fittest, and i think IVF is very much justified for childless couples - its a truely wonderful bit of science,

but to use it to choose the gender? not so sure - once those embies fertilize they are babies, and to simply dispose of them because they are boys seems so wrong.

perhaps if the embies were donated to eggless couples it would be more justified!

but honestly, where does it end? a girl...then a girl with blue eyes.. blonde hair only?

surely it a long, sad, slippery slope??

Kitty

I would like to share my story with you I am one of TEN, I have 8 brothers and a sister!
1stchild me 25yrs girl,
2nd b1 (1st brother21yrs,
3rd b2 19yrs,
4th b3 17yrs,
5th b4 16yrs,
6th b5 14yrs,
7th b6 13yrs,
8th b7 12yrs,
9th b8 10yrs,
10th sister1 3yrs.

My last 7 brothers grow up knowing the reason why they were conceived was in hope for a girl, when they were born it was " oh it's a boy better luck next time" and because I wasn't my step dads (my step dad was my real dad in my eyes and you couldn't of got a closer pair than me and my dad) real child then I didn't count. MY mother was the green eyed monster because my dad's first wife had a little girl by my dad, she didn't like that, so she tried to give him a little girl too, mad I know, one of the many reasons I hate my mother and I do!
It tuck my mother 17 yrs to get her little girl and my dad died last year and never saw his little girl's 3rd birthday, my sister is never ever going to remember him, that hurts!

I have two little boys I would also love a little girl, but what i want most is a very healthy baby that is all! girl, boy doesn't matter! I've been trying for 14 months now for a baby, just to be pg would be a God send for me!

This is the way i think puely on my familys history, if i woman such as my mother had this treatment then i wouldn't have 7 brothers that think they are not worthly of being on this planet, because they were the less desired sex and KNOW SO. surely a child wanted is a happy child! Isn't it better to think about the children that are here and healthy and happy rather an the children that will never come about and might never have done!

Its a difficult one, I too cannot have children and have had 3 IVF babies (God bless)

I was mortified when I had a boy, it was soon replaced with tremendous guilt, which I still feel now 11 years down the line, I went on to have twins ds & dd, I don't know what I'd have done if I had 3 boys, yes its nice to have the same sex but when you have a desire so badly for a particular sex, its natural to be disappointed, the thing is not to be too hard on yourself, because once your baby is born, you just melt!

In spite of all this though my sons are sooooo loving, my dd is independent and won't be squished , its so nice to have a comparison.

So mixed feelings from me! but I feel for last post!