英女性熱衷飛美國選擇胎兒性別

Dozens of British women a year are flying to the United States and paying thousands of pounds to select the sex of their baby, it has emerged.

As gender selection is banned in the UK, couples desperate to balance their family by adding a boy or girl are flying to New York or Los Angeles.

Earlier this year The Telegraph discovered that doctors were granting women illegal abortions based on the sex of their children. It led to Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, launching an inquiry.

Doctors at fertility clinics check the women's fertilised eggs and then implant an embryo into them - after checking that the child will have the required gender.

Patients from other parts of Europe are also jetting to the States to ensure the sex of their baby.

One doctor offering the service, British-trained Dr Jeffrey Steinberg, says he currently helps around 40 British couples a year. Altogether he has assisted 400 British women since he began offering the service a few years ago.

Dr Steinberg, whose main clinic is in New York: "New York is only a seven or eight-hour flight from most of Europe, so it works very well for those from Britain, France, Germany, Spain and the Middle East."

Dr Steinberg offers a technique called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD).

A welcome message on his website says: "If you want to be certain your next child will be the gender you are hoping for, no other method comes close to the reliability of PGD.

"While traditional sperm-screening techniques have a success rate of 60 to 70 percent, only PGD offers virtually 100 percent accuracy."

The website adds: "Unlike many programmes offering sex selection only to very limited couples with known genetic disorders in the family, we make sex selection available to all patients.

"Parents have come to us from nearly every nation on the planet -- we have assisted patients from 147 different nations -- seeking to balance their families or assure themselves that a pregnancy will result in only the gender outcome they desire."

Gender selection is banned in Britain under the 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act. British law only allows gender testing where there is a family history of serious physical or mental medical conditions which are gender related.

據(jù)透露，英國每年都有數(shù)十名女性飛往美國就醫(yī)，花費數(shù)千英鎊來選擇胎兒的性別。

因為英國國內(nèi)禁止性別選擇，那些迫切想添個男孩或女孩、平衡家中性別比例的英國夫婦現(xiàn)在開始飛往紐約或洛杉磯就醫(yī)。

今年早些時候英國電訊報發(fā)現(xiàn)醫(yī)生們允許女性根據(jù)胎兒性別非法墮胎。這促使衛(wèi)生部長安德魯•蘭斯利對此事進行調(diào)查。

生殖診所的醫(yī)生們先檢查女性的受精卵，在確定女性要求的小孩性別后，便將胚胎移植進去。

來自歐洲其他國家的病人也飛往美國就醫(yī)，確保嬰兒的性別是自己想要的。

提供此項服務的一名醫(yī)生、在英國接受從業(yè)培訓的杰弗里•斯泰伯格醫(yī)生說，他現(xiàn)在每年幫助約40對英國夫婦達成所愿。自從幾年前他開始提供這項服務以來，他一共幫助過400名英國女性。

診所總部在紐約的斯泰伯格醫(yī)生說：“從歐洲大多數(shù)國家坐飛機到紐約，只有七八個小時的行程，所以對于那些來自英國、法國、德國、西班牙和中東國家的人非常合適。”

斯泰伯格醫(yī)生提供一種名叫“胚胎植入前遺傳學診斷”(PGD)的技術(shù)。

他網(wǎng)站上的歡迎辭寫道：“如果你想確保你的下一個孩子是你期盼的性別，再沒有比PGD更可靠的方法了。

“傳統(tǒng)的精子篩檢技術(shù)成功率為60%到70%，但只有PGD能提供近乎100%的高準確度成功率。”

網(wǎng)站上還說：“我們不像許多項目那樣，只對有家族遺傳病史的極少數(shù)夫婦提供性別選擇服務，我們讓所有病人都有機會選擇胎兒性別。

“幾乎世界上的每個國家都有前來就醫(yī)的父母——我們幫助過來自147個不同國家的病人——他們試圖平衡家庭成員性別，或確保一次懷孕就能生出他們想要的性別的小孩。”

依據(jù)1990年《人類受精與胚胎法案》，英國禁止性別選擇。英國法律只允許那些有嚴重的家族遺傳生理或精神病史，而且遺傳病和性別相關(guān)的人進行性別鑒定。