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01-20-2004, 01:32 PM
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Brave New Babies
Parents now have the power to choose the sex of their children. But as technology answers prayers, it also raises some troubling questions
Mary, left, and Sam Toedtman chose the sex of their nine-month-old daughter Natalie, center, to balance out their boys Jesse, 15 in the back, Jacob, 10, and Lucas, 7
By Claudia KalbJan. 26 issue - Sharla Miller of Gillette, Wyo., always wanted a baby girl, but the odds seemed stacked against her. Her husband, Shane, is one of three brothers, and Sharla and her five siblings (four girls, two boys) have produced twice as many males as females. After the Millers' first son, Anthony, was born in 1991, along came Ashton, now 8, and Alec, 4. Each one was a gift, says Sharla, but the desire for a girl never waned. "I'm best friends with my mother," she says. "I couldn't get it out of my mind that I wanted a daughter." Two years ago Sharla, who had her fallopian tubes tied after Alec's birth, began looking into adopting a baby girl. In the course of her Internet research, she stumbled upon a Web site for the Fertility Institutes in Los Angeles, headed by Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg, where she learned about an in vitro fertilization technique called preimplantation genetic diagnosis. By creating embryos outside the womb, then testing them for gender, PGD could guarantee—with almost 100 percent certainty—the sex of her baby. Price tag: $18,480, plus travel. Last November Sharla's eggs and Shane's sperm were mixed in a lab dish, producing 14 healthy embryos, seven male and seven female. Steinberg transferred three of the females into Sharla's uterus, where two implanted successfully. If all goes well, the run of Miller boys will end in July with the arrival of twin baby girls. "I have three wonderful boys," says Sharla, "but since there was a chance I could have a daughter, why not?"
The brave new world is definitely here. After 25 years of staggering advances in reproductive medicine—first test-tube babies, then donor eggs and surrogate mothers—technology is changing baby-making in a whole new way. No longer can science simply help couples have babies, it can help them have the kind of babies they want. Choosing gender may obliterate one of the fundamental mysteries of procreation, but for people who have grown accustomed to taking 3-D ultrasounds of fetuses, learning a baby's sex within weeks of conception and scheduling convenient delivery dates, it's simply the next logical step. That gleeful exclamation, "It's a boy!" or "It's a girl!" may soon just be a quaint reminder of how random births used to be.
Advances in reproductive technology now make it possible for parents to choose the gender of their children. Here are three methods with varying costs, complexities and success rates.
• MicroSort Method
• Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis
• Ericsson Method
1 This experimental technique separates girl-producing sperm, which carry X chromosomes, from boy-producing sperm, which have Y chromosomes.
2 The sperm are stained with a fluorescent dye that binds to chromosomes. X chromosomes are bigger than Y's, so they soak up more dye.
3 The sperm are zapped with a laser that illuminates the dye. X chromosomes, with more dye, glow brighter, distinguishing them from Y chromosomes.
4 Sperm pass by an electrode that gives X's a positive charge and Y's a negative one. Charged plates then attract and separate X's and Y's, channeling them into different receptacles. Separation is not perfect.
5 Either sample can now be used to fertilize a woman's eggs, depending on the gender requested.
1 Originally designed for detecting genetic diseases. Using IVF techniques, doctors remove eggs from the woman and fertilize them with sperm in the lab, creating embryos.
2 After three days, technicians extract a cell from each embryo. They can differentiate male and female embryos by examining their chromosomes. If they spot a Y, they know it's male.
3 After determining the sex of embryos, doctors implant the desired ones. While more invasive and costly than the other methods here, success(after achieving pregnancy) is virtually guaranteed.
1 In this decades-old technique, sperm are poured on a viscous layer of fluid. The sperm, head-heavy, naturally swim down.
2 Sperm carrying Y chromosomes swim faster than sperm carrying X chromosomes, reaching the bottom of the test tube sooner. They can then be extracted and used for insemination.
3 Supporters of this low-cost technique claim a 78 to 85 percent chance of producing a boy. Critics say the odds are no better than 50-50.
-- Josh Ulick
SOURCES: The Gallup Organization; The Genetics & Public Policy Center; The Genetics & IVF Institute; David Hill, Art Reproductive
center; childselect.com; sydney ivf; photos clockwise from bottom left:the genetics & ivf institute (2), steve allen--getty images, sydney ivf (3); graphic by kevin hand and tonia cowan--newsweek. • Printable version
Throughout history, humans have wished for a child of one sex or the other and have been willing to do just about anything to get it. Now that gender selection is scientifically feasible, interest in the controversial practice (banned, except for medical reasons, in the United Kingdom) is exploding. Despite considerable moral murkiness, Americans are talking to their doctors and visiting catchy Web sites like www.choosethesexofyourbaby.com and myboyorgirl.com—many of them offering money-back guarantees. In just the last six months, Steinberg's site has had 85,000 hits. At the Genetics and IVF Institute (GIVF) in Fairfax, Va., an FDA clinical trial of a sophisticated sperm-sorting technology called MicroSort is more than halfway to completion. Through radio, newspaper and magazine ads ("Do you want to choose the gender of your next baby?"), the clinic has recruited hundreds of eager couples, and more than 400 babies out of 750 needed for the trial have been born. Other couples continue to flock to older, more low-tech and questionable sperm-sorting techniques like the Ericsson method, which is offered at about two dozen clinics nationwide. By far, the most provocative gender-selection technique is PGD. Some clinics offer the procedure as a bonus for couples already going through fertility treatments, but a small number are beginning to provide the option for otherwise healthy couples. Once Steinberg decided to offer PGD gender selection to all comers, he says, "word spread like wildfire."
LIVE TALK
Join Claudia Kalb Friday, Jan. 23 at Noon ET to discuss the implications of using the latest technologies to choose the gender of babies. Submit questions now.
The ability to create baby Jack or baby Jill opens a high-tech can of worms. While the advances have received kudos from grateful families, they also raise loaded ethical questions about whether science is finally crossing a line that shouldn't be crossed. Even fertility specialists are divided over whether choosing a male or female embryo is acceptable. If couples can request a baby boy or girl, what's next on the slippery slope of modern reproductive medicine? Eye color? Height? Intelligence? Could picking one gender over the other become the 21st century's form of sex discrimination? Or, as in China, upset the ratio of males to females? Many European countries already forbid sex selection; should there be similar regulations in the United States? These explosive issues are being debated in medical journals, on university ethics boards and at the highest levels in Washington. Just last week the President's Council on Bioethics discussed proposals for possible legislation that would ban the buying and selling of human embryos and far-out reproductive experimentation, like creating human-animal hybrids. While the recommendations—part of a report due out this spring—do not suggest limiting IVF or gender selection, the goals are clear: the government should clamp down before technology goes too far. "Even though people have strong differences of opinion on some issues," says council chair and leading bioethicist Leon Kass, "all of us have a stake in keeping human reproduction human."
COVER PACKAGE | JANUARY 26 ISSUE
Behind the new science of gender selection and the issues it raises for American families and those around the world.
• Brave New Babies
• No Girls, Please
• One, Two, Three or More?
• The Ancient Art of Making Babies
• Live Talk: Choosing Gender
After their first son, Jesse, was born in 1988, Mary and Sam Toedtman tried all sorts of folksy remedies to boost their chances of having a girl. When Jesse was followed by Jacob, now 10, and Lucas, 7, it seemed clear that boys would be boys in the Toedtman family. Sam has two brothers and comes from a line of boys 70 years long. So, after a lot of serious thinking, the Toedtmans decided to enroll in GIVF's clinical trial of MicroSort for "family balancing." That's the popular new term for gender selection by couples who already have at least one child and want to control their family mix. Since MicroSort's family-balance trial began in 1995, more than 1,300 couples have signed on—almost 10 times more than joined a companion trial aimed at avoiding genetic illnesses that strike boys. GIVF is actively recruiting new candidates for both trials. In 2003 a second MicroSort clinic was opened near Los Angeles, and a third is planned for Florida this year. GIVF hopes MicroSort will become the first sperm-sorting device to receive the FDA's stamp of approval for safety and effectiveness. "This will completely change reproductive choices for women, and that's very exciting," says MicroSort's medical director, Dr. Keith Blauer. "We hope to make it available to as many couples as possible."
to read more interesting about this subject: go to Link (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/Default.aspx?id=3990134&p1=0)
Continued Pages 1 | 2 | 3
Could be very usefull info.
Brave New Babies
Parents now have the power to choose the sex of their children. But as technology answers prayers, it also raises some troubling questions
Mary, left, and Sam Toedtman chose the sex of their nine-month-old daughter Natalie, center, to balance out their boys Jesse, 15 in the back, Jacob, 10, and Lucas, 7
By Claudia KalbJan. 26 issue - Sharla Miller of Gillette, Wyo., always wanted a baby girl, but the odds seemed stacked against her. Her husband, Shane, is one of three brothers, and Sharla and her five siblings (four girls, two boys) have produced twice as many males as females. After the Millers' first son, Anthony, was born in 1991, along came Ashton, now 8, and Alec, 4. Each one was a gift, says Sharla, but the desire for a girl never waned. "I'm best friends with my mother," she says. "I couldn't get it out of my mind that I wanted a daughter." Two years ago Sharla, who had her fallopian tubes tied after Alec's birth, began looking into adopting a baby girl. In the course of her Internet research, she stumbled upon a Web site for the Fertility Institutes in Los Angeles, headed by Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg, where she learned about an in vitro fertilization technique called preimplantation genetic diagnosis. By creating embryos outside the womb, then testing them for gender, PGD could guarantee—with almost 100 percent certainty—the sex of her baby. Price tag: $18,480, plus travel. Last November Sharla's eggs and Shane's sperm were mixed in a lab dish, producing 14 healthy embryos, seven male and seven female. Steinberg transferred three of the females into Sharla's uterus, where two implanted successfully. If all goes well, the run of Miller boys will end in July with the arrival of twin baby girls. "I have three wonderful boys," says Sharla, "but since there was a chance I could have a daughter, why not?"
The brave new world is definitely here. After 25 years of staggering advances in reproductive medicine—first test-tube babies, then donor eggs and surrogate mothers—technology is changing baby-making in a whole new way. No longer can science simply help couples have babies, it can help them have the kind of babies they want. Choosing gender may obliterate one of the fundamental mysteries of procreation, but for people who have grown accustomed to taking 3-D ultrasounds of fetuses, learning a baby's sex within weeks of conception and scheduling convenient delivery dates, it's simply the next logical step. That gleeful exclamation, "It's a boy!" or "It's a girl!" may soon just be a quaint reminder of how random births used to be.
Advances in reproductive technology now make it possible for parents to choose the gender of their children. Here are three methods with varying costs, complexities and success rates.
• MicroSort Method
• Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis
• Ericsson Method
1 This experimental technique separates girl-producing sperm, which carry X chromosomes, from boy-producing sperm, which have Y chromosomes.
2 The sperm are stained with a fluorescent dye that binds to chromosomes. X chromosomes are bigger than Y's, so they soak up more dye.
3 The sperm are zapped with a laser that illuminates the dye. X chromosomes, with more dye, glow brighter, distinguishing them from Y chromosomes.
4 Sperm pass by an electrode that gives X's a positive charge and Y's a negative one. Charged plates then attract and separate X's and Y's, channeling them into different receptacles. Separation is not perfect.
5 Either sample can now be used to fertilize a woman's eggs, depending on the gender requested.
1 Originally designed for detecting genetic diseases. Using IVF techniques, doctors remove eggs from the woman and fertilize them with sperm in the lab, creating embryos.
2 After three days, technicians extract a cell from each embryo. They can differentiate male and female embryos by examining their chromosomes. If they spot a Y, they know it's male.
3 After determining the sex of embryos, doctors implant the desired ones. While more invasive and costly than the other methods here, success(after achieving pregnancy) is virtually guaranteed.
1 In this decades-old technique, sperm are poured on a viscous layer of fluid. The sperm, head-heavy, naturally swim down.
2 Sperm carrying Y chromosomes swim faster than sperm carrying X chromosomes, reaching the bottom of the test tube sooner. They can then be extracted and used for insemination.
3 Supporters of this low-cost technique claim a 78 to 85 percent chance of producing a boy. Critics say the odds are no better than 50-50.
-- Josh Ulick
SOURCES: The Gallup Organization; The Genetics & Public Policy Center; The Genetics & IVF Institute; David Hill, Art Reproductive
center; childselect.com; sydney ivf; photos clockwise from bottom left:the genetics & ivf institute (2), steve allen--getty images, sydney ivf (3); graphic by kevin hand and tonia cowan--newsweek. • Printable version
Throughout history, humans have wished for a child of one sex or the other and have been willing to do just about anything to get it. Now that gender selection is scientifically feasible, interest in the controversial practice (banned, except for medical reasons, in the United Kingdom) is exploding. Despite considerable moral murkiness, Americans are talking to their doctors and visiting catchy Web sites like www.choosethesexofyourbaby.com and myboyorgirl.com—many of them offering money-back guarantees. In just the last six months, Steinberg's site has had 85,000 hits. At the Genetics and IVF Institute (GIVF) in Fairfax, Va., an FDA clinical trial of a sophisticated sperm-sorting technology called MicroSort is more than halfway to completion. Through radio, newspaper and magazine ads ("Do you want to choose the gender of your next baby?"), the clinic has recruited hundreds of eager couples, and more than 400 babies out of 750 needed for the trial have been born. Other couples continue to flock to older, more low-tech and questionable sperm-sorting techniques like the Ericsson method, which is offered at about two dozen clinics nationwide. By far, the most provocative gender-selection technique is PGD. Some clinics offer the procedure as a bonus for couples already going through fertility treatments, but a small number are beginning to provide the option for otherwise healthy couples. Once Steinberg decided to offer PGD gender selection to all comers, he says, "word spread like wildfire."
LIVE TALK
Join Claudia Kalb Friday, Jan. 23 at Noon ET to discuss the implications of using the latest technologies to choose the gender of babies. Submit questions now.
The ability to create baby Jack or baby Jill opens a high-tech can of worms. While the advances have received kudos from grateful families, they also raise loaded ethical questions about whether science is finally crossing a line that shouldn't be crossed. Even fertility specialists are divided over whether choosing a male or female embryo is acceptable. If couples can request a baby boy or girl, what's next on the slippery slope of modern reproductive medicine? Eye color? Height? Intelligence? Could picking one gender over the other become the 21st century's form of sex discrimination? Or, as in China, upset the ratio of males to females? Many European countries already forbid sex selection; should there be similar regulations in the United States? These explosive issues are being debated in medical journals, on university ethics boards and at the highest levels in Washington. Just last week the President's Council on Bioethics discussed proposals for possible legislation that would ban the buying and selling of human embryos and far-out reproductive experimentation, like creating human-animal hybrids. While the recommendations—part of a report due out this spring—do not suggest limiting IVF or gender selection, the goals are clear: the government should clamp down before technology goes too far. "Even though people have strong differences of opinion on some issues," says council chair and leading bioethicist Leon Kass, "all of us have a stake in keeping human reproduction human."
COVER PACKAGE | JANUARY 26 ISSUE
Behind the new science of gender selection and the issues it raises for American families and those around the world.
• Brave New Babies
• No Girls, Please
• One, Two, Three or More?
• The Ancient Art of Making Babies
• Live Talk: Choosing Gender
After their first son, Jesse, was born in 1988, Mary and Sam Toedtman tried all sorts of folksy remedies to boost their chances of having a girl. When Jesse was followed by Jacob, now 10, and Lucas, 7, it seemed clear that boys would be boys in the Toedtman family. Sam has two brothers and comes from a line of boys 70 years long. So, after a lot of serious thinking, the Toedtmans decided to enroll in GIVF's clinical trial of MicroSort for "family balancing." That's the popular new term for gender selection by couples who already have at least one child and want to control their family mix. Since MicroSort's family-balance trial began in 1995, more than 1,300 couples have signed on—almost 10 times more than joined a companion trial aimed at avoiding genetic illnesses that strike boys. GIVF is actively recruiting new candidates for both trials. In 2003 a second MicroSort clinic was opened near Los Angeles, and a third is planned for Florida this year. GIVF hopes MicroSort will become the first sperm-sorting device to receive the FDA's stamp of approval for safety and effectiveness. "This will completely change reproductive choices for women, and that's very exciting," says MicroSort's medical director, Dr. Keith Blauer. "We hope to make it available to as many couples as possible."
to read more interesting about this subject: go to Link (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/Default.aspx?id=3990134&p1=0)
Continued Pages 1 | 2 | 3
Could be very usefull info.