AFP: "Designer babies? Couples flock to US to choose next baby's sex "

Some quotes:

"Parents from around the world are forking out around 19,000 dollars for a groundbreaking gender selection treatment offered by only a handful of US clinics but banned in most countries."

$19,000.00...(!)

...

"It was important for us to balance our family," added the resident of British Columbia.

Family balancing is the refrain heard from most of the 2,000 couples who have sought the help of fertility expert Doctor Jeffrey Steinberg, who became a pioneer in the field of commercial gender selection about three years ago.

"unbalanced" families? Sons-in-law and daughters-in-law might help the situation, as would being willing to have more than two or three biological children. If you can spend almost $20,000 for the procedure, money isn't a real problem, is it?

...

The process also rings alarms bells among conservative Christians amid concerns over the fate of unused embryos left over in the process, since many believe human life begins when the embryo is formed.

But Steinberg dismisses the three-pronged criticism of the gender selection process.

He stresses that his clients mostly opt to keep fertilised eggs in his eggbank rather than discard them. He said the technique was more humane than the current trend of aborting foetuses or dumping female babies in India and China.

Fertilized eggs (=human beings) that are eventually used for what purposes? Embryonic stem cell research? As for it being "more humane", well, it allows the children to live for less time. That's true.

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