Pravda.RU:Science and Culture:More in detail US: sex selection is permitted to the parents
22:16 2005-03-24
Parents should be allowed to choose the sex of their children to achieve a balanced family, MPs have recommended in a report that has opened up divisions in a parliamentary select committee.
The report, from the Select Committee on Science and Technology, also recommends the abolition of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and says that opposition to reproductive cloning is based ?more on taboos than coherent argument¦.
The final report, published today, was agreed by just four members of the ten-strong committee, plus the chairman, Dr Ian Gibson.
Later, when the committee gathered to agree a summary and a press release, the minority MPs blocked agreement on both. Instead, an informal summary was issued yesterday by the office of Evan Harris, one of the five who approved the report. The others were Dr Gibson, Robert Key, Brian Iddon and Des Turner.
The dissidents assert that the proposals are too libertarian and fail to uphold the precautionary principle that is at the heart of contemporary legislation. They also maintain that insufficient regard was given to public opinion and ethical arguments, publishes the Times Online.
At the moment in the UK, sex selection is only permitted if there are strict medical reasons. This could be because there is a serious sex-linked disorder in the family, such as Duchenne's Muscular Dystrophy.
But the MPs say that people who, say, have all boys and want to have a girl should be able to do so.
Alan and Louise Masterton, from Monifieth, near Dundee, are one couple who desperately want a daughter.
They have four sons, and their daughter Nicole died in a bonfire accident aged three, tells BBC News.
NR
would you pick the gender of your baby if you could (under any circumstances), and why?
22:16 2005-03-24
Parents should be allowed to choose the sex of their children to achieve a balanced family, MPs have recommended in a report that has opened up divisions in a parliamentary select committee.
The report, from the Select Committee on Science and Technology, also recommends the abolition of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and says that opposition to reproductive cloning is based ?more on taboos than coherent argument¦.
The final report, published today, was agreed by just four members of the ten-strong committee, plus the chairman, Dr Ian Gibson.
Later, when the committee gathered to agree a summary and a press release, the minority MPs blocked agreement on both. Instead, an informal summary was issued yesterday by the office of Evan Harris, one of the five who approved the report. The others were Dr Gibson, Robert Key, Brian Iddon and Des Turner.
The dissidents assert that the proposals are too libertarian and fail to uphold the precautionary principle that is at the heart of contemporary legislation. They also maintain that insufficient regard was given to public opinion and ethical arguments, publishes the Times Online.
At the moment in the UK, sex selection is only permitted if there are strict medical reasons. This could be because there is a serious sex-linked disorder in the family, such as Duchenne's Muscular Dystrophy.
But the MPs say that people who, say, have all boys and want to have a girl should be able to do so.
Alan and Louise Masterton, from Monifieth, near Dundee, are one couple who desperately want a daughter.
They have four sons, and their daughter Nicole died in a bonfire accident aged three, tells BBC News.
NR
would you pick the gender of your baby if you could (under any circumstances), and why?
