Bioethicists worry about effects of gender test

General Electric Medical Systems

An ultrasound image captures many features of a 13-week fetus. A new test kit offers parents the ability to find out the gender of their baby as early as five weeks into the pregnancy. Some bioethicists worry the new technology may promote a rise in abortions from those unhappy with the sex of their child.

Congratulations, you're pregnant! And it's a girl!

These two revelations usually come months apart. But a new blood test enables expectant mothers to find out the gender of their baby-to-be as early as five weeks into the pregnancy.

The Baby Gender Mentor test kit includes two pregnancy tests and a kit for collecting and sending a simple finger-prick blood sample to a Massachusetts laboratory. The kit emails the confidential results within 48 hours.

Because embryonic DNA is present in maternal blood, the sample is tested for the presence of the Y chromosome, which indicates a male. If there is no Y chromosome, the embryo is female. The test does not need federal Food and Drug Administration approval because it is not used as a diagnostic tool.

Some see this kind of early gender identification as a simple, harmless way to find out what color to paint the nursery almost four months before conventional tests, such as amniocentesis or ultrasound, reveal a baby's sex.

However, bioethicists question whether the new technology will be used as a tool for sex selection, prompting a woman to abort her fetus if she doesn't approve of its gender.

Trends in gender selection

While surveys of Americans show no general gender preference, some cultures prize boys far above girls. That preference is fueling trends in India and China, for example, in which the number of boys born each year outstrips girls far beyond the natural ratio of about 105 boys to every 100 girls. Those governments have tried to crack down on ultrasound labs that specialize in sex determination.

Arthur Caplan, chairman of the department of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said he doubted the new test would be used widely in the United States. But the ability to find out gender so quickly is troubling, he said.

"If you sell the test in India, China or the Philippines, that's a problem. 'Five weeks out' shifts the moral equation for some people. Ending a pregnancy is easier to do than at 20 weeks," Caplan said. He also questioned the lack of counseling for those who want to find out the baby's gender.

Caplan said the test is just the beginning in using DNA testing to gain information about embryos.

"It's the cutting edge of what's coming," he said. "What if you find out if the baby will have a high risk of depression, or obesity, or will have red hair? What about a disposition to homosexuality? If it's not to detect a disease, you shouldn't be doing it."

Not a U.S. concern

Sherry Bonelli, president of Mommy's Thinkin', which sells the Baby Gender Mentor test, dismissed the possibility of misuse in the United States.

"Within other countries with preferences for boys vs. girls, that might be a concern, but I firmly believe it's not an issue in the U.S.," she said.

The test, based on newly patented technology, is so reliable, Bonelli said, that the company offers a double-money-back guarantee.

The company's scientific director, C.N. Wang, told the Boston Globe the gender test is designed to showcase the power of an innovative DNA technique that can acquire definitive results from a drop of dried blood. Wang said the company is not ready to publish data on the technique and its accuracy, the Globe reported.

Since the test debuted on the Today show in mid-June, Bonelli said, more than 2,000 kits have been sold.

Peggy O'Crowley is a staff writer for The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.