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Thursday, 24 March 2005 10:35

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Parents to choose baby’s sex

MPs are to give the go-ahead to couples to create "designer babies" by allowing parents to select the sex of their baby.

But a Commons Science and Technology Committee report said more decisions about fertility treatment should be made by patients and their doctors.

The science and technology select committee report, which will also recommend the scrapping of regulators, the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority, has criticised the precautionary approach used up until now, instead arguing that new technologies should be used until harm is proved.

The report recommends that:
• Parents who want to "balance" their family should be allowed to choose the sex of their baby;
• The laboratory production of chimeras by mixing human and animal cells should be legal as long as they are destroyed within 14 days and subject to a ban on implantation on women;
• A total ban on reproductive cloning cannot be justified without more argument on the "fundamental issues", even though the technique is neither safe, effective nor reliable at the moment;
• The requirement on fertility clinics to consider the welfare of the potential child before treatment is unworkable and should be scrapped;
• Sperm and egg donors should be allowed to remain anonymous if they want to, which will not be the case under a change of law from next month.

The report is critical of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which regulates fertility treatment and embryo research. It argues that its members lack scientific and clinical expertise and that there are conflicts between its role as an enforcer of the law and its advisory role, which requires it to identify any flaws in the legislation.

Dr David King, director of Human Genetics Alert, said: "The kind of ethics we see in this report, which is incapable of saying a clear no to anything, is no ethics at all. Even when dealing with human genetic engineering, cloning or the creation of human-animal hybrids, the committee wants to remove existing protections”.

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