Most parents are so grateful to have a healthy baby that the sex of the child is a secondary consideration. But what of those who are so desperate for a boy or a girl that they will go to any lengths to achieve it? This investigation reveals that in the UK today there are thousands of British couples so desperate to choose the sex of their baby that they are prepared to undergo a controversial fertility treatment that is banned in this country and most of Europe on ethical grounds。

　　不管当今是否还是重男轻女的时代、还是女尊男卑的时期，生男孩还是生女孩对于新婚夫妇来说似乎不是什么大不了的事情。但是对于已经有了3个儿子的“万人迷”老爹贝克汉姆来说，生儿生女就不再那么那么让他无所谓的事情了，期待老婆维多利亚下一胎是女孩可以说是小贝爸爸目前的“最大心愿”。但是生男还是生女真的可以自己决定么？传说影星安吉丽娜·朱丽为了生双胞龙凤胎专门投医去吃“仙丹”，对于在英国数以万计的夫妇来说，可能选择婴儿的性别要经历许多“具有争议性质”的测试，而这些测试因为宗教等因素在英国乃至整个欧洲来说都是绝对禁止的。

　　‘Family Balancing’, as it is known, enables would-be parents to select the sex of a child with almost 100 per cent certainty through a technique called Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD)， which is carried out during IVF. The practice is legal in most U.S. states, Russia and the Middle East, but in Britain it is regarded by regulators at the Human Fertilisation Embryo Authority as a step too far and, as such, is allowed only in rare medical situations。

　　决定是生儿子还是生女儿不是没有办法，一种叫做“平衡家庭成员性别”的方法“造福”了数以万计的准爸爸和准妈妈们。这种方法有着近乎 100%的准确率，据悉，它使基因诊断日趋完善和简化，使产前诊断的领域不断得到扩展，种植前遗传学诊断(preimplantation genetic diagnosis)作为产前诊断的一种形式，为不愿接受终止妊娠的遗传病高危夫妇提供选择手段。作为产前诊断的有效手段，这种诊断方法还被人们用作检查婴儿性别的手段。据悉，该方法在美国大多数地区以及俄罗斯、中东都是合法的。但是在英国被禁止，因为人类受精胚胎权威机构称该方法似乎“过火了”，只能用在极少数的医疗领域。

　　Opponents say it involves doctors ‘playing God’ and is another step towards a future of ‘designer babies’, in which parents are able to select the physical traits of their offspring, such as height, hair and eye colour. Josephine Quintavalle, of the UK pro life campaign group Comment on Reproductive Ethics (CORE)， said: ‘This so-called family balancing is a dangerous path to go down. IVF was developed to address genuine infertility problems, not to facilitate discriminatory social engineering of this kind.’

　　反对者称，这种诊断方法后患无穷，他们认为，人们起初会“决定”婴儿的性别，逐渐的，人的欲望会越来越大，“设计婴儿”的欲望会变得一发不可收拾，人们开始希望能够参与“设计”小孩的---身高、发色、眼睛颜色等等。来自英国评论生殖伦理组织的专家Josephine Quintavalle说：“这种所谓的家庭优化、或者家庭成员平衡的诊断方法是一种很危险的尝试，如果方法可行，后果将不堪设想。”试管受精方法将会演变出很多基因生育问题，更别说对于社会性别歧视带来的负面影响了。