Dozens of British women a year are flying to the United States and paying thousands of pounds to select the sex of their baby, it has emerged.

　　As gender selection is banned in the UK, couples desperate to balance their family by adding a boy or girl are flying to New York or Los Angeles.

　　Earlier this year The Telegraph discovered that doctors were granting women illegal abortions based on the sex of their children. It led to Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, launching an inquiry.

　　Doctors at fertility clinics check the women's fertilised eggs and then implant an embryo into them - after checking that the child will have the required gender.

　　Patients from other parts of Europe are also jetting to the States to ensure the sex of their baby.

　　One doctor offering the service, British-trained Dr Jeffrey Steinberg, says he currently helps around 40 British couples a year. Altogether he has assisted 400 British women since he began offering the service a few years ago.

　　Dr Steinberg, whose main clinic is in New York: "New York is only a seven or eight-hour flight from most of Europe, so it works very well for those from Britain, France, Germany, Spain and the Middle East."

　　Dr Steinberg offers a technique called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD).

　　A welcome message on his website says: "If you want to be certain your next child will be the gender you are hoping for, no other method comes close to the reliability of PGD.

　　"While traditional sperm-screening techniques have a success rate of 60 to 70 percent, only PGD offers virtually 100 percent accuracy."

　　The website adds: "Unlike many programmes offering sex selection only to very limited couples with known genetic disorders in the family, we make sex selection available to all patients.

　　"Parents have come to us from nearly every nation on the planet -- we have assisted patients from 147 different nations -- seeking to balance their families or assure themselves that a pregnancy will result in only the gender outcome they desire."

　　Gender selection is banned in Britain under the 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act. British law only allows gender testing where there is a family history of serious physical or mental medical conditions which are gender related.

　　据透露，英国每年都有数十名女性飞往美国就医，花费数千英镑来选择胎儿的性别。

　　因为英国国内禁止性别选择，那些迫切想添个男孩或女孩、平衡家中性别比例的英国夫妇现在开始飞往纽约或洛杉矶就医。

　　今年早些时候英国电讯报发现医生们允许女性根据胎儿性别非法堕胎。这促使卫生部长安德鲁•兰斯利对此事进行调查。

　　生殖诊所的医生们先检查女性的受精卵，在确定女性要求的小孩性别后，便将胚胎移植进去。

　　来自欧洲其他国家的病人也飞往美国就医，确保婴儿的性别是自己想要的。

　　提供此项服务的一名医生、在英国接受从业培训的杰弗里•斯泰伯格医生说，他现在每年帮助约40对英国夫妇达成所愿。自从几年前他开始提供这项服务以来，他一共帮助过400名英国女性。

　　诊所总部在纽约的斯泰伯格医生说：“从欧洲大多数国家坐飞机到纽约，只有七八个小时的行程，所以对于那些来自英国、法国、德国、西班牙和中东国家的人非常合适。”

　　斯泰伯格医生提供一种名叫“胚胎植入前遗传学诊断”(PGD)的技术。

　　他网站上的欢迎辞写道：“如果你想确保你的下一个孩子是你期盼的性别，再没有比PGD更可靠的方法了。

　　“传统的精子筛检技术成功率为60%到70%，但只有PGD能提供近乎a hundred percent的高准确度成功率。”

　　网站上还说：“我们不像许多项目那样，只对有家族遗传病史的极少数夫妇提供性别选择服务，我们让所有病人都有机会选择胎儿性别。

　　“几乎世界上的每个国家都有前来就医的父母——我们帮助过来自147个不同国家的病人——他们试图平衡家庭成员性别，或确保一次怀孕就能生出他们想要的性别的小孩。”

　　依据1990年《人类受精与胚胎法案》，英国禁止性别选择。英国法律只允许那些有严重的家族遗传生理或精神病史，而且遗传病和性别相关的人进行性别鉴定。

　　Vocabulary:

　　fertilised egg: 受精卵

　　virtually: 事实上，几乎

　　genetic disorder: 遗传病;遗传缺陷

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