"Now you can design your own baby. But should you?" is the tantalizing teaser for this week's much-quoted article about preimplantation genetic diagnosis in the online magazine Slate. The inaccurate and sensational lead-in is entirely appropriate for the misleading, fear-mongering article. I guess this...

What is the social impact of parents choosing the sex of a child for family balancing? Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston have launched a study of 50 prospective parents who already have a child of one gender, and hope to use PGD to conceive a baby of the opposite gender. The study...

Residents of Vancouver and Toronto can attend a play about the ethical questions raised by PGD: "What is normal? Who should decide?" Dr. Jeff Nisker [is] a Canadian PGD researcher turned playwright whose exploration of the moral minefields surrounding PGD and genetic testing can be seen in his play,...

Dr. Edgar Dahl, bioethicist and senior research fellow at the medical centre of Geissen University, Germany, argues that sex selection should be permitted in the UK. Based on his extensive research on gender preference among parents in many countries, Dahl refutes the common misconception that gender...

Revolutionary foetus sex test raises eugenics fears News Telegraph, UK Anti-abortion groups in the UK oppose the Baby Gender Mentor. A mother of 3 boys awaits her Baby Gender Mentor results to find out if her 4th child is a boy or a girl. Interestingly, Acu-Gen, the makers of Baby Gender Mentor, have...

Article: Test tube perfection , Herald Sun, Australia Quotes from the maladroit Father Bill Uren, rector of the Jesuit Theological College: He denounced parents who "just want to create children after their own image". What, exactly, kind of children should I want, then? I pretty much thought children...

Article: Early sex selection test raises ethical concerns (CBC News, Canada) No, it's not Acu-Gen's Early Gender Mentor. Paragon Genetics, a DNA testing lab offering paternity, infidelity, and forensic testing, has begun offering what is now called "non-invasive" prenatal testing, by obtaining the baby...

Article: 'Savior sibling' born to Fletcher family (BioNews, UK) I've written before about the Whitakers, a family with a seriously ill son who could be cured by a bone marrow transfusion. They hoped to use PGD to have a 'savior sibling' -- using an embryo selected because it was a tissue match for their...

Why the critics got it wrong over 'designer babies' Scottish News Commentary on the report on reproductive technologies issued by the UK's House of Commons select committee on science and technology concludes, "the report certainly is radical, but in a positive not a negative sense".

The law is halting birth of new era Scottish News Dr. Ian Gibson, chairman of the UK's House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, comments on changes needed in the function of the HFEA, which regulates fertility treatment in the UK. An excerpt from this excellent article: The 1990 Act has an...