B.C.'s health minister to raise alarm over baby-gender test [Canada]

B.C. Health Minister George Abbott says he plans to contact his federal counterpart, Ujjal Dosanjh, this week to express his alarm about a test kit available for sale over the Internet that apparently makes it possible for a woman to find out the gender of a fetus as early as five weeks into her pregnancy.

"This is something that is of much concern to me," he said in an interview Sunday. "Gender testing should only be done in early stage pregnancy when it's medically necessary."

He will also bring his concerns about the test to a scheduled meeting of provincial and territorial health ministers in the fall if necessary, he said.

Not only is the province concerned about the possibility that the test could be used by couples to terminate a pregnancy based on the sex of the embroyo, there is no way to determine the reliability of the testing kit.

"We really have no way of knowing of the quality of the kits and whether in fact the predictability of the kits and accuracy of the kits ....