Test reveals gender early in pregnancy: Ethicists fear use in sex selection

First came the home pregnancy test. Now here comes the home gender test.

A new blood test being marketed to American women offers them the chance to find out whether they are having a boy or a girl almost as soon as they realize they are pregnant, as early as five weeks along.

Just two or three days after mailing the test overnight to a Lowell lab for processing, a pregnant woman can know what color to paint the nursery -- or even decide whether to get an abortion if she wants a child of the opposite sex, a prospect that worries ethicists.

The $275 test works by detecting and analyzing fetal DNA floating in the mother's blood, a method that researchers say holds promise for serious clinical uses, from cancer testing to prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome.

The test, called the Baby Gender Mentor, is meant for ''the type of woman who can't wait to open Christmas presents," said Sherry Bonelli, president of Mommy's Thinkin', the company that is marketing the test at an online pregnancy store.

But ethicists...