Australian Couple Aborts Twin Boys to Seek IVF for a Female Fetus

An Australian couple apparently aborted twin boys because they really wanted to have a baby girl. This husband and wife, who live in Victoria, Australia, lost an infant girl just a few days a after her birth. Now they have willingly lost twin boys before birth.

The couple already has three boys, all conceived in the traditional way. The unborn twin boys were conceived by in vitro fertilization (IVF), but aborted to make womb (so to speak) for the possibility of a much-desired baby daughter-to-be.

Pursuing another in vitro fertilization (IVF), which frequently results in multiple births, the man and woman are now facing a legal quagmire down under. The Victorian Patient Review Panel is blocking the couple's efforts to attempt a follow-up fertilization, in the hopes of producing a female fetus.

Here's the catch.

Supposedly, the sticky widget of the case is not that the Australian husband and wife were willing to abort their unborn twin boys, but that they want to use sex selection technology in the lab to determine the genders of their next fertilized eggs before they are implanted for a possible pregnancy. Fertilized embryos that do not meet the couple's preference would be discarded.

The woman, now in her mid-thirties, has expressed eagerness to produce a baby daughter as soon as possible. In fact, the Australian woman has publicly admitted that she is has grown obsessed with the idea of having a daughter.

"After what we have been through we think we are due for a bit of luck," the Australian father told the Melbourne Herald-Tribune. "We know we definitely won't be replacing her in any way, but want the chance to have the baby girl we don't have. We think it's our right to have a chance to do it."

Now the couple is supposedly taking their case before the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, hoping to plead their preselected pregnancy case in March 2011. If they are denied in Australia, the Australian husband and wife have apparently suggested that they might attempt to achieve in vitro fertilization (IVF) in the United States.

The "Australian Reproductive Treatment Act of 2008" does not allow for the use of abortion as a means of selecting the gender of unborn children, unless the medical procedure is performed to prevent a high risk of transmission of a genetic abnormality or a disease. The first point in the printed legal document claims this purpose: "to regulate the use of assisted reproductive treatment and artificial insemination procedures (other than self-insemination)."

Gab Kovacs, an Australian in vitro fertilization (IVF) specialist, said this about the couple's choice to abort their twin boys and pursue conception of a female fetus, "I can't see how it could possibly harm anyone. Laws should be made to protect people from things that are going to damage them. Why should we make this illegal? Who is this going to harm if this couple have their desire fulfilled?"

Were the unborn twin boys unharmed? Hardly.

What's more, even a casual onlooker has to wonder how the Australian couple's three older sons may see their parents' decision, once they learn of it. Will these boys feel valued by Mom and Dad, when they know of the choice their folks made, regarding their potential baby brothers?

Child psychologists may ponder the burden a girl born under these circumstances might carry, once she discovers what her parents were willing to do to bring her into the world.

Boys will be boys ... or will they?

What does this Australian case say about the ethics of eugenics?

Should people be allowed to use abortion as a means of selecting specific traits in their unborn children and producing designer babies? Pro-lifers and pro-abortion activists are lining up on both sides of the equation.

Another option is available, of course.

As an adoptive parent, I must weigh in on the blessing and merits of welcoming children into a family through adoption.

Today in certain countries of the world, particularly where parents are restricted by government rations on family sizes, baby girls are discarded readily. International adoptions have become popular and more accessible than ever, particularly for those specifically seeking to add female infants to their families. International adoptions can be costly, but perhaps not nearly as expensive as extended in vitro fertilization (IVF) attempts.

Bob Phelps, a gene ethics specialist in Australia, offered a similar suggestion. ""I'm sorry they lost their daughter but, in the interests of society as a whole, they should seek some counseling for their grief and look for another way of getting a daughter into their family," Phelps said."They sound like good parents and could offer a home to a child who needs one."