Time to reconsider sex selection?

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 non-medical reasons in the UK. Even the sperm sorting technique described in some newspapers has been around since 1993, when the opening of the London Gender Clinic caused a furore in the British media, as well as in parliament.

But whilst the techniques involved in sex selection are not new, initial signs are that the tenor of the debate is a little different from that of 1993. Nearly a decade after the matter first came to the attention of the public, attitudes towards sex selection seemed to have calmed. An editorial in the Observer this weekend was genuinely torn over the issue and found it difficult to object to a practice 'which causes no obvious harm and may bring untold happiness to parents'.

The one reservation the Observer editorial voiced was a concern about slippery slopes. 'We acknowledge fears that lifting this taboo might lead to other interferences in the reproductive process. Could hair colour, body type or future sexuality of a baby be subject to selection too?'

Many people might feel that going from medical uses of sex selection to social ones would represent a qualitative leap. But even the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has acknowledged that it could be a controlled leap. In its 1993 consultation document on sex selection (the outcome of which was a ban on social sex selection using the techniques the authority regulates), it suggested that legislation could be used to draw a clear line between social sex selection and the selection of other non-disease related characteristics.

Biology might also ease fears of a slippery slope. Sex is pretty much the only non-disease characteristic that can be easily and accurately tested for in embryos and in sperm. Other genetically determined characteristics such as eye or hair colour are notoriously difficult to predict, as they involve a number of different genes. As for characteristics like physical build, intelligence and sexuality, it's not even clear what contribution genes make to the process.

Biology isn't the answer to the ethical question, of course. But, given a new-found ability to discuss the issue a more rationally than last time around, perhaps it's time to reconsider the HFEA's ban and think twice before imposing one on sperm sorting techniques.