choosing the sex of your baby: fact or fiction???

in my sociology class, we were discussing the nature vs nurture theory and what has more influence when it comes to one's personality / etc...

i then mentioned that scientists could now choose the sex of a couple's baby (because i remembered reading about it on ATS somewhere)...

the teacher didn't really agree with what i said and he asked that i show him some reading about the topic...

all i have found thus far is:

www.planbaby.com...

PlanBaby.com is a natural baby gender selection method based on biological rhythms. This method will help you choose, with an amazing degree of accuracy (from 90 to 95%), the gender of the baby you are planning to conceive - or, if you are pregnant, to find out the most likely sex of your baby.

Choose The Sex Of Your Baby (cbsnews.com)...

(CBS) Want to design the perfect baby? It's not as farfetched as you may think.

As Correspondent Vicki Mabrey reported last spring, a new technology is helping couples manipulate Mother Nature in their favor. It’s an embryo screening procedure invented for the purpose of identifying embryos that carry serious, often fatal, genetic diseases.

But these days, it's being used for something very different – to help couples choose the sex of their child. And for the man who pioneered the procedure, the new direction the technology is taking is disturbing.

Choosing your baby's sex: What the scientists say...

Can we choose the sex of our child?
Yes, choosing the sex of your child is technically possible thanks to advances in fertility treatments that allow doctors to create or identify embryos of a certain sex. But today's sex-selection options aren't equally effective, affordable, or available.

The most accurate sex-selection methods are usually the most expensive (tens of thousands of dollars), often involving invasive infertility treatments and fertility drugs with side effects. If you're serious about trying one of these techniques, you'll have to meet strict eligibility requirements, too. In some cases you won't be eligible unless you're married and already have at least one child of the sex opposite from the one you're trying for. Some clinics also have age limits or require you to take hormone tests to prove you're not approaching menopause.

And keep in mind that Mother Nature has already tipped the odds a bit in favor of boys in the sex-selection game. According to data released in 2004 from the National Center for Health Statistics, approximately 1,050 boys are born for every 1,000 girls.

do you have any better links (preferably scientific ones)???

thanks

no replies

i must keep searching for answers then

found this:

preimplantation genetic diagnosis...

PGD has raised ethical issues. The technique can be used to determine the gender of the embryo, and thus can be used to select embryos of one gender in preference of the other in the context of “family balancing”. It may be possible to make other "social selection" choices in the future. While controversial, this approach is less destructive than fetal deselection during the pregnancy.

sex selection...

Pre-implantation methods

Two major types of pre-implantation methods can be used for sex selection.

Sperm sorting - The separation of X Chromosome sperm from Y Chromosome sperm. The resulting sorted sperm are used in either artificial insemination or in-vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures.

Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) - In sex selection cases, embryos resulting from IVF procedures are genetically tested for X or Y Chromosomes. The embryos of the desired sex are then implanted.

Post-implantation methods

Prenatal diagnosis - Amniocentesis and/or ultrasound is used to determine sex of an offspring, leading to subsequent abortion of any offspring of the unwanted sex.