Hoping for a Girl

A new and controversial technology gives parents the chance to pick their baby's gender. Critics, however, warn that sex selection might be unethical.

By Jeff Grossman, published on May 01, 2004 - last reviewed on July 11, 2008

When Johanna*, an Arkansas mom, learned she would give birth to her third baby boy, she decided to investigate high-tech help for her next child, which she hoped would be a girl. She's expecting what she thinks will be her first daughter, thanks to MicroSort, a reproductive technology.

The technology, originally developed for farm animals, uses a laser to separate sperm cells by size (X-chromosome cells are larger). At Genetics and IVF Institute, in Fairfax, Virginia, the basic procedure costs between $2,000 and $4,000, says nursing director Mary Fusillo.

With about 500 cases, MicroSort had a 91 percent success rate in sorting for girls, and close to 75 percent for boys, Fusillo says. Because MicroSort is experimental, it is so far offered only as part of a controlled trial. After 750 births, the Food and Drug Administration will rule whether the technique should be widely available. Only two clinics are currently authorized by the FDA to offer MicroSort.

So far, only families seeking "balance" or those at risk for gender-related genetic diseases are eligible, a restriction imposed by the company. To qualify, parents must have more than one child of the same gender. A family with two boys and a girl, for example, could only sort for another girl.

Nearly all of the families who have used MicroSort are hoping for girls, partially because sex-linked diseases overwhelmingly affect boys. Even those families seeking balance, though, try for daughters up to twice as often as sons.

But is MicroSort headed for a collision with medical ethics? Sex selection for nonmedical reasons is already illegal in the U.K. And the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) said it contradicts their code of ethics. "The very idea of preferring a child of a particular sex may be interpreted as condoning sexist values, and, hence, [could" create a climate in which sex discrimination can more easily flourish," says ACOG's ethics committee. The American Society of Reproductive Medicine cautiously endorses gender selection, but warns that gender-sorted kids may disappoint parents when the technique fails or feel pressure to conform to their gender role.

* name has been changed