Although it is assumed that the probability of having a boy or girl is 50% in each pregnancy, in practice it seems that not everything works that way, and there are couples who can have three or four children of the same sex (tell me) and there are those who decide to try a next pregnancy in case the baby of the desired sex finally arrives, which does not always happen.
Unless the technology is made available to parents, as some in vitro fertilization experts suggest, they argue that the parents should be able to choose the sex of the baby from the third child.
Laws should change
The in vitro fertilization laws in Australia will be reviewed later this year, and experts from that continent are pushing for be allowed to choose sex for the third baby, as they explain, for reasons of balance within the family.
To date, parents are only allowed to choose sex for medical reasons, basically to avoid certain genetic diseases linked to the sex of the baby, which could be avoided if a specific one is chosen. Selecting sex for religious reasons, or for cultural reasons or for the desire to have "the couple" or similar, is strictly prohibited.
This is what we want to change in some cases, so that parents do have that decision power in that third pregnancy. Apparently there are not many parents who would choose to choose, according to said experts, because many would not want to do it and would prefer to leave it in the hands of fate, but in those cases that already have two boys or two girls, it could be a good solution, as they defend.
This change in the law could set an ethical precedent to which other countries could then try to accommodate, in order to offer a similar solution to citizens.
"So parents will not put themselves at risk in another country"
One of the mentioned experts is Professor Michael Chapman, who defends that it would be a way to protect the health of Australian couples and economic risks of going abroad to have that service. In addition, as we read in Babyology, he defends that it is something that will be done sooner and later, when he says the following:
They accused us of creating designer babies when we started doing IVF 25 years ago. Now there are more than 200,000 children born in Australia through IVF and we have made people's lives happy.
The Australian Medical Association is against that measure
However, the president of the Australian Medical Association, Michael Gannon, has refused to support this measure because it considers that it is inappropriate use of technology. In fact, the risk that Professor Chapman comments could be nothing compared to that many couples who could have a child could naturally run, by having an IVF in search of the third child with the desired sex.
That is, it could happen that some couples decided to have a child through in vitro fertilization, with the risks that this entails (children born from in vitro fertilization have, on average, worse health than those conceived naturally), only to be able to choose the baby sex
What is your opinion? Do you think parents should be able to choose the sex of their third baby? I, in view of this risk that I have just mentioned, I already say in advance that no. I have the feeling, in fact, that they do not do it thinking about parents, but in being able to offer a service more available to couples, to increase the clientele.
