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Public debate required on sex selection

Public debate on sex selection technologies has been sparked off by the opening in January of the London Gender Clinic, in Hendon, north London.

Drs Alan Rose and Peter Liu are offering prospective parents the opportunity to choose the sex of their offspring, at £650 a time. More than 60 clinics in the US offer similar services, but this is the first of its kind in the UK.

The clinic has already come in for strong criticism from leading infertility experts in the medical profession. Several have written to the General Medical Council demanding clarification of the medical qualifications of Drs Rose and Liu.

In response to the row, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), which is responsible for licensing and regulating fertility clinics and embryo research in the UK, brought forward the publication of its consultation document on the ethics of sex selection. The chair of the HFEA, Prof Colin Campbell, said he would prefer doctors to wait until the public consultation was over and the authority had issued draft recommendations before they offered sex selection services.

‘This is a matter of serious public concern which should be fully debated before decisions are made’, he said.

The HFEA document explores the social, legal, ethical and practical issues involved. But a week after its launch, a New Scientist report threw scientific doubt on the claims of the sex selectors.

The technique in use by the London Gender Clinic may only be ‘as effective as old wives’ tales’, according to Roy Jones of the Institute of Animal Physiology at Cambridge.

John Aitken, of the MRC Reproductive Biology Unit in Edinburgh, said that the technique, which relies on the idea that ‘male’ sperm move faster than ‘female’ ones, was unproven.

‘There is no good scientific data to confirm that X- and Y-bearing sperm do swim at different rates’, he said.

Similar concerns were voiced by Joan Walsh, of the Women’s Health and Reproductive Rights Information Centre in London. ‘We think there is a risk that people are going to be ripped off’, she told healthmatters. ‘They may be given unrealistic expectations. The investigations and treatments should be properly evaluated before they are used.’