Loading The Dice New Technology Is Helping Parents Choose The Gender Of Their Children, But Should We Make The Choice?

Any woman who’s been pregnant can recount all the times someone told her what the sex of her child was going to be based on the kinds of food she craved, how she carried the baby and even the rate at which the hair on her legs grew.

Up until about two decades ago, when ultrasound technology became widely used, putting these myths to the test was about the only way for parents-to-be to determine the sex of their unborn child.

But now there’s a whole new player in the game of baby making, and it almost eliminates the myths.

It’s called MicroSort, a DNA sorting of sperm cells that can significantly boost your chances of having a girl or boy before conception occurs.

Developed by the Genetics and IVF Institute in Fairfax, Va., and reported in a medical journal in September, the technology raises intriguing questions about how inclined humans will be to tamper with what used to be solely Mother Nature’s territory.

“There are two issues here. There’s the playing God issue and the human wants issue,” said Pete Rayner, a Spokane father of five girls.

“From what we know, it’s too close to playing God and too manipulative of the natural process for us,“ Rayner said.

Though admitting that he and his wife wanted a boy, Rayner said they probably wouldn’t use such technology.

“Am I so committed to having a boy to carry on the Rayner name that I would use it? Probably not.”

Katy Frankenfield, a Spokane mother of three boys, said, “I wouldn’t change a boy for a girl ever. I’d probably feel the same if I had three girls, too.”

Her father was one of three boys. Then he had three girls.

“It’s really fun to have all the same. They become good buds.

“I never really cared (what the sex would be). When I had my third boy, I was like, `Yes, I know what to do with one these.”’

Frankenfield said she doesn’t think a lot of people would jump at the chance to use the technology, which involves artificially inseminating the woman with the man’s sperm cells after they have been sorted into groups containing mostly X or Y chromosomes.

Rayner thinks some people would.

“I knew people so hung up on having a boy that when they had a girl, it ruined their marriage,” he said. “So for those people I can’t imagine that they’d even blink an eye about it.”

Candi Lommen and her husband had two sons right away and then waited before having their third child.

“I had to think about it for a few years after the first two, knowing it could be a boy, and had to ask myself could I handle that?” the Spokane mother said.

“I think it came down to we just wanted another baby.”

Her third child was also a boy.

“I wanted a girl, but I didn’t have such strong feelings that I would have gone to extreme measures.”

The technology is still in clinical trials at the Genetics and IVF Institute and is not absolute. The institute reports that MicroSort can make it five to six times more likely a baby will be a girl or two times more likely it will be a boy.

It costs $2,500 for the genetic sorting. That figure includes the cost of artificial insemination.

Julie Hanna, who has a doctorate in human genetics and works at the Sacred Heart Medical Center genetics lab in Spokane, said she’s not aware of anybody in the Inland Northwest involved in the trials.

Most of the work done at the lab is paternity testing and post-conception testing to determine gender.

Since Sacred Heart is a Roman Catholic hospital, it is unlikely to become involved in research that manipulates the natural process, she said.

“I’m not Catholic, but having a healthy baby is what really matters,” Hanna said.

“I do have less of a problem with that technology compared to using the technology for pregnancy termination when the gender of the baby isn’t what was wanted.

“I haven’t faced that here, but it is an issue with certain ethnic groups in this country.

“For me, when I was pregnant … I was hoping for a girl. I was disappointed (when she had a boy), but I wouldn’t take steps to change anything,” she said.

In addition to being used for what is called “family balancing” or “gender balancing,” MicroSort is being used by parents who want to avoid passing on an X-linked disease, such as Duchenne’s muscular dystrophy, which is carried by females and passed only to boys.

In cases where the technology could be used to avoid passing on a genetic disease, some parents say they would embrace the technology.

“If I knew I was a carrier of that (Duchenne’s), then definitely I’d want to have a girl,” Frankenfield said.

Hanna agreed.

“To me, you’re diagnosing a disease, not choosing a gender per se,” Hanna said.

MicroSort is a major breakthrough in DNA manipulation that many say will bring up countless ethical questions.

Could we someday be making custom-ordered babies? Could the technology get out of control?

“I think it could, but I think enough people are concerned about the whole subject of ethics and genetics,” Hanna said. “There are people working on this in every country of the world, and each has an ethics committee asking, `How far should we go?”’

Johnny Cox, a Spokane ethicist who has worked at Sacred Heart and now is with Providence Services, said there’s already been a fundamental shift in the way society views babies.

What once was regarded as procreation then became reproduction. Then it moved to the laboratory, and with the today’s technology could become a market place.

“The part that is scary to me is the commodification of the child - the designer baby,” he said.

In short, Cox said, there are three major ethical issues with using the technology to create the ideal baby: the depersonalization of the sexual love of a couple, the dehumanization of the child, and the deterioration of parenting.

“Control of the product costs the depersonalization of the process,” Cox said. “For me that is a cost that undermines the meaning of sexual love and family well-being and has a huge impact on parenting.

“What happens if you don’t get what you wanted?

“The ones that get rejected are the ones that don’t fit the desired product specifications.”

Still, Hanna said,“I think the inherent goodness of humans will prevent this from going too far.

“I’m hopeful.”