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Sex selection is a dirty phrase in Western countries, but Middle Eastern couples are jumping on fertility technology as changing attitudes make it easier and more acceptable to 'make it a boy'.
Euphemistically called 'family balancing,' couples throughout the Middle East are turning to a technique called PGD, or pre-implantation genetic diagnosis to choose male embryos.
Yale University Middle East fertility expert, Marcia Inhorn, told Middle East Monitor PGD was needed in the Middle East thanks to the high degree of genetic diseases and male infertility caused, in part, by intra-family marriages.
But much to her dismay she is also seeing an increased use of PGD solely for sex selection.
"It could really get out of hand, and actually there probably will be a traffic of reproductive tourists coming for gender selection to places like the UAE, unfortunately. So that one is an ethical slippery slope. It doesn't make me happy to know people are selecting boys over girls."
Dr Inhorn said she was hearing rumours of clinics in Jordan and the UAE where most of the patients were there...
Euphemistically called 'family balancing,' couples throughout the Middle East are turning to a technique called PGD, or pre-implantation genetic diagnosis to choose male embryos.
Yale University Middle East fertility expert, Marcia Inhorn, told Middle East Monitor PGD was needed in the Middle East thanks to the high degree of genetic diseases and male infertility caused, in part, by intra-family marriages.
But much to her dismay she is also seeing an increased use of PGD solely for sex selection.
"It could really get out of hand, and actually there probably will be a traffic of reproductive tourists coming for gender selection to places like the UAE, unfortunately. So that one is an ethical slippery slope. It doesn't make me happy to know people are selecting boys over girls."
Dr Inhorn said she was hearing rumours of clinics in Jordan and the UAE where most of the patients were there...