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Life

Sex selection for human embryos backed by report

30 March 2005

LET them choose boys! Or girls! That’s what parents in the UK should be free to do, according to a parliamentary committee. Its controversial report calls for a relaxation of the rules on the use of reproductive technologies and human embryo research.

The report recommends that parents on IVF programmes be allowed to use pre-implantation genetic diagnosis to select the sex of a second or later child for “family-balancing” reasons. It is also unfair for IVF clinics to screen would-be parents to try to exclude child abusers, it says.

If accepted, the report’s recommendations would bring the UK more in…

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