Posted on 05/02/2009 8:50:43 PM PDT by Maelstorm
Brian Sheldon and Matthew Shaffer are one of several gay Victorian couples taking advantage of California's liberal IVF laws.
The couple ordered the two babies -- even choosing their preferred sex, male -- through US IVF pioneer Dr Jeffrey Steinberg.
The Australian Family Association believed it was tantamount to "trafficking in children", while the two fathers yesterday defended their decision to start a family.
"The issue is not really a gay issue. It's a reproductive rights issue for everybody," Mr Sheldon said.
Dr Steinberg said an increasing number of gay Australians were visiting his Californian fertility centre to start a family -- and sidestep Victorian law, which prohibits commercial surrogacy.
"We see two or three gay couples from Australia each month and that's a five-fold increase over the last two years," he said.
Dr Steinberg said between 75 to 80 per cent of gay and lesbian couples came to him for treatment decided to choose the sex of their babies -- using the controversial IVF procedure and embryo screening known as Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis.
"If they choose gender, about 65 to 70 per cent of male gay couples choose male," he said.
Each gay couple is able to choose a baby to order -- taking into account the physical characteristics and education level of egg donors, who are aged between 18 and 27.
The fertilised embryos are then implanted in a surrogate, usually single mothers or married women in their late 20s or early 30s who have gone through a strict psychological and physical screening process.
Australian Family Association president Angela Conway said the practice was like trafficking in children.
"Many of these cases have elements of designer babies," she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
Bad news for the aviation industry.
Why? Two people can operate machinery. No machinery has yet been invented by humans which will take the embryo to term.
The only thing that comes to mind are Jacko’s poor children.
Human puppy mill...
“The issue is not really a gay issue. It’s a reproductive rights issue for everybody,”
True, and when two gay men can reproduce they can keep the baby.
“True, and when two gay men can reproduce they can keep the baby.”
Someday those words may come back to haunt us. We are on the verge of technology that may very well allow Fertility Clinics to create an artificial egg with the genetic material of a man and then fuse it with a sperm to become a viable embryo. We need to stop the out of control Fertility industry because that is what is turning this country and others into a freak show.
Except, like it or not, you do not have a right to fly.
The American middle class is “out to lunch” on nearly everything. Some are even waiting for a government check from the “bailout”.
This is going to come back and bite the gay community in the ass (which is already sore to begin with), when some science dude does a study and discovers that these kids are more likely to be gay when they grow up than their counterparts with normal parents.
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