IntelliGender release raises abortion fears
By Courier Mail,
Courier Mail
| 05. 10. 2009
A test that claims to determine the sex of an unborn baby only eight weeks into a pregnancy will be available in pharmacies from today.
IntelliGender, the first test of its kind in Australia, claims a 90 per cent accuracy rate in determining whether a baby will be a boy or a girl.
Doctors and the anti-abortion lobby, however, fear the test will be used as a means of sex selection and drive up abortion rates.
The company behind the $95 test, which has been sold in the US since 2006, says it takes 10 minutes and identifies a "confidential element" found in the hormones of a woman pregnant with a girl.
The element is found in very low levels in women pregnant with a boy or not pregnant at all.
Currently, women who want to find out their baby's gender can do so at a routine 18- to 20-week ultrasound to check on the health and development of the child.
Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists president Dr Ted Weaver said there appeared to be...
Related Articles
What We Inherit by Sam Trejo and Daphne O. Martschenko; and Original Sin by Kathryn Paige Harden have a great deal in common, with substantial differences in style and emphasis. Both books attempt, in different ways, to show the reader just where current research into human genomics stands, where that might be going, and why the authors are interested. In short, the influence of genomic research on our societies is already large and seems likely to change them in ways...
By Dan Falk, Nautilus | 08.20.2026
The pseudoscience of eugenics, founded on the mistaken notion that nature envisions some “right” combination of genes, and that selective breeding can improve the human race, is making a comeback. While the heyday of eugenics was a century ago, the...
By Adithi Ramakrishnan, AP News | 08.05.2026
NEW YORK (AP) — Matt Walker couldn’t pet a dog without sneezing — until he and other scientists used a gene editing technique to produce a hypoallergenic beagle named Bailey.
Now, he can feed Bailey spoons of peanut butter while...
By Brendan Borrell, Science | 07.23.2026
The young girl tugged on her mother’s hand as they pressed through the doors of the hospital in Shanghai. She was 6 years old, bouncing along in a pink jacket and blue pants decorated with cartoon bears. Behind them, her...
