BUY A Y :

Parents pay to choose baby's sex: Doctor's gender clinic revealed: Will it be a boy or a girl? (Jo Revill, September 8, 2002, The Observer)

Using laser technology, the MicroSort company in Fairfax, Virginia, claims to be able to separate sperm into those bearing the Y-bearing male chromosome and those carrying the X-bearing female chromosome. They send it back to Belgium and the woman's eggs are fertilised with sperm carrying the sex desired. Under the 'family balancing' method, the mother is only allowed to have a child of the opposite gender from the child, or children, she already has.

Comhaire told an Observer journalist - who was posing as a 39-year-old mother of a daughter who now wants a boy - that the technique was successful in 91 per cent of cases where a girl is wanted and in 75 per cent of those wanting a boy.

He said a much greater chance of getting the desired sex was possible by carrying out a pre-implantation diagnosis on the embryo, to determine its sex. 'This can be done, but it's going to cost you another Û6,000 (£3,660). It's a delicate type of procedure. But the chances are much better because you are reimplanting an embryo where you know the sex.'

What do we suppose the percentages are for choosing the respective sexes? Posted by Orrin Judd at September 26, 2002 1:19 PM