No Scruples, Big Price, It's All Yours

"IVF clinics have had pretty free rein, and some would look at their pathway as being a bit free and easy in terms of new developments. [U.S. clinics have] a bit of a reputation of being cowboys."
"They help a lot of people ... and that's largely a good thing. But one might wonder if there is a need for more oversight than we currently have."
National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins

New Hope Fertility Center

Through a process known as preimplantation, genetic diagnosis, or PGD, gender selection has become a possible choice where clinicians remove a single cell or a few cells from an embryo to use DNA probes for the purpose of examining its genetic makeup. PGD typically is used to screen embryos for the presence of inherited diseases, but the procedure can be used as well to identify embryos with desirable characteristics. PGD assists parents-to-be in selecting which embryos to transfer to the womb, which to discard, without altering the embryo.

This new science of expendable embryos failed to impress religious conservatives believing that conception equals new life's beginning. A panel in Britain to study assisted reproduction suggested that a public body be established to oversee human embryo research, regulate fertility clinics and lead debates revolving about new technologies, to which Britain's Parliament concurred, establishing the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority, the first such of its kind -- that other countries eventually emulated.

In the United States, instead of supporting research and government regulation a 1995 provision to an appropriations bill prohibited the expenditure of federal funds for any research involving the creation or destruction of human embryos so lawmakers whose ethics and politics preferred to skirt the issue could vote against public funding for such research at the same time that the private sphere picked up the embryo research ball. While in Britain a practical approach was taken to the inevitable ensuring that government would have the last word in protecting the public interest.

In the U.S. the Food and Drug Administration sent a warning letter in 2017 to Dr. John Zhang who experimented with mitochondria technology whose purpose was to aid older women with degraded eggs. That warning from the FDA chilled any such research for which Britain in the same year formally licensed the process for women with heritable diseases. India last year banned commercial surrogacy and Ireland is preparing to join the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, New Zealand and others to prohibit anonymous sperm donation.

Other countries like China, Canada and Australia ban gender selection other than in rare instances of medical need, a situation where, ten years earlier the U.S. was also seized with the moral aspect of such procedures. Currently as many countries impose boundaries on assisted reproduction, no such hesitation exists in the U.S. fertility industry which remains for the most part unregulated, routinely offering services elsewhere outlawed. Making the U.S. a popular destination for IVF patients from all corners of the world.

Commercial surrogacy, anonymous sperm donation and screening for physical characteristics, along with sex selection are freely available, with the fertility industry in the United States valued at $5.8 billion in 2018. The Chinese researcher who created the world's first gene-edited infants which last month caused a stir worldwide, had his training in the United States. NIH Director Collins was clear in condemning the gene-editing as an "epic scientific misadventure". It seem the Chinese government may agree if for no other reason than embarrassment, since Dr. He has since been placed under investigation.

Fertility specialist Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg in Encino California was accused of practising eugenics, offering parents the choice of gender, eye, skin and hair colour. He added gender screening to his IVF clinic at a time when it simply wasn't done. In the years since, IVF clinics across the U.S. routinely now offer such screening as a standard service. Close to 73 percent of U.S. fertility clinics offer gender selection, according to a survey published in the Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics.

Couples without fertility problems but who choose IVF to enable them to control the outcome of their pregnancies are offered gender selection. Thousands of patients yearly are sent to IVF clinics in the U.S. from Australia where such interventions are illegal. Dr. Steinberg speaks of parents now requesting even greater access to 'designing' outcomes. Eye colour is a popular choice with a 60 percent success rate, where most prospective parents want a blue-eyed or green-eyed baby.

"People call up asking for all kinds of things: vocal ability, athletic ability. Height is a big one. I have a lot of patients who want tall children", he remarked. "If  you do what I do, you can't have a strong ethical opinion [other than when parents ask for] something that is going to be harmful."

World Leading Gender Selection Program

• World leading 100%* Gender Selection with PGD
• Lowest base price of any U.S. PGD program
• Affiliate clinics in over 42 countries
• Screening for over 400 hereditary diseases
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• Critical procedures performed by MDs and PhDs
• Full assistance with travel discounts and visas
• Financing available