The Telegraph reports: Number of women travelling to America to choose sex of child rises 20%
"The number of British couples having fertility treatment in America so they can choose the sex of their child is increasing by a fifth every year, a leading doctor has said.
Dr Daniel Potter, who runs a large fertility clinic in America, treats 10 patients from Britain a month who want to have IVF treatment only in order to select the gender of the baby.
Eight in ten couples from Britain are choosing to have a girl, he said.
Hundreds more could be travelling to other clinics across America and the numbers are rising by 20 per cent a year, Dr Potter said.
Sex selection is banned in Britain unless done so for medical reasons and an investigation by the Telegraph discovered doctors willing to authorise abortions on the grounds of gender.
Dr Potter who runs the HRC clinic in Newport Beach in California, said 80 per cent of couples from Britain are choosing to have a girl.
It had been feared that allowing sex selection would lead to an imbalance between the genders with fewer girls born for cultural reasons.
However Dr Potter said the women he sees are desperate for a girl having grown up playing with dolls and always imagined they would have daughter.
He told the Telegraph: "Some have only one child but most have two or three of the same gender. The process is driven by the mother who has identified with little girls since her own childhood and has always had a place for a daughter. When they do not have one, it is like a death and they grieve for their little girl."
Dr Potter's patients often do not need fertility treatment in order to conceive but go through the process so that the resulting embryos can be screened and the chosen sex transferred to the womb.
The whole process costs around US$15,000 and requires a 12 day stay near the clinic.
Dr Potter said: "I think that pregnancy termination as a method of gender selection is not acceptable but I also believe that is it not for me to impose my values on other people."
"The number of British couples having fertility treatment in America so they can choose the sex of their child is increasing by a fifth every year, a leading doctor has said.
Dr Daniel Potter, who runs a large fertility clinic in America, treats 10 patients from Britain a month who want to have IVF treatment only in order to select the gender of the baby.
Eight in ten couples from Britain are choosing to have a girl, he said.
Hundreds more could be travelling to other clinics across America and the numbers are rising by 20 per cent a year, Dr Potter said.
Sex selection is banned in Britain unless done so for medical reasons and an investigation by the Telegraph discovered doctors willing to authorise abortions on the grounds of gender.
Dr Potter who runs the HRC clinic in Newport Beach in California, said 80 per cent of couples from Britain are choosing to have a girl.
It had been feared that allowing sex selection would lead to an imbalance between the genders with fewer girls born for cultural reasons.
However Dr Potter said the women he sees are desperate for a girl having grown up playing with dolls and always imagined they would have daughter.
He told the Telegraph: "Some have only one child but most have two or three of the same gender. The process is driven by the mother who has identified with little girls since her own childhood and has always had a place for a daughter. When they do not have one, it is like a death and they grieve for their little girl."
Dr Potter's patients often do not need fertility treatment in order to conceive but go through the process so that the resulting embryos can be screened and the chosen sex transferred to the womb.
The whole process costs around US$15,000 and requires a 12 day stay near the clinic.
Dr Potter said: "I think that pregnancy termination as a method of gender selection is not acceptable but I also believe that is it not for me to impose my values on other people."
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