Claims have been made that a new technique, available in the UK, is being used in other countries to select the sex of embryos for social reasons. According to a report published in the Mail on Sunday, blastocyst transfer results in more male embryos than female being transferred to the...
The UK government has asked the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to investigate a 'legal loophole' which in theory allows some private clinics to offer sex selection of children for non-medical reasons. The request comes following reports that some clinics are offering a 'sperm sorting' technique that enables them...
A challenge against the Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Research Purposes) Regulations 2001 was mounted in the High Court last Wednesday. Passed in January of this year, the regulations allow the use of embryos for stem cell research with therapeutic goals. The ProLife Alliance has challenged the passage of the regulations...
Scientists at the Institute of Health Sciences at Oxford University, UK, have published findings that say that women who smoke impair their fertility. Their report, published in the Journal of Biosciences, states that women who do not give up smoking before they try to become pregnant take significantly longer to...
US senators battled this week over a proposal that, if accepted, would affect President Bush's policy on human stem cell research. Republican senator Arlen Specter inserted a clause into a finance bill of the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) which would allow stem cell research to take place on...
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Time to reconsider sex selection?
by Juliet Tizzard
Over the weekend, the UK media has run a number of stories about sex selection, which we cover in this week's BioNews. There's nothing new about sex selection: it's been possible to test embryos for sex for more than a decade, although it's never been legal to do so for...