FEARS that a new gender prediction test — widely available on the internet — could lead to parents resorting to abortions based solely on gender grounds were raised last night.
The DNA testing kits — which cost just €285 — can show the sex of an unborn baby at just six weeks.
The controversial kit provides everything needed to take a prick of blood from the mother.
The mother sends her sample directly to the company’s laboratory for analysis and will receive the result in the post or can access it online using a protected password.
Couples can get their money back if it wrongly predicts the sex of their child.
The kit was first launched in the US before becoming available in Britain.
Reacting to the new test, the Pro-Life Campaign said using the kit to discover the sex of an unborn child undermined human dignity.
The organisation is particularly concerned that some parents might opt for an abortion if they are unhappy with the result.
Campaign spokesman John Smyth said it was not overstating the case that the use of such practices was in danger of becoming a new form of eugenics.
DNA Worldwide, which is marketing the product, has dismissed such claims.
The company said the results, obtained from blood taken from a finger-prick, simply allowed parents more time to plan for their baby.
The head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Prof Fergal Malone, also dismissed as “scare-mongering” fears that the test may prompt parents to have abortions on gender grounds.
Prof Malone said the test would have little more than a curiosity value.
He said the same technology — which had been available in the US for about two years — was used in medicine to get an unborn baby’s blood type.
Prof Malone also warned parents to be wary about using the test between six and nine weeks after conception.
“There is not much data supporting its accuracy in the first trimester, but quite a bit of data now suggests it is accurate in the second and third trimesters,” he said.
Prof Malone went on to say that roughly half of Irish parents wanted to know the sex of their unborn child.
Source: Irish Examiner
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