Sex Selection: It's available now (and has been)

More people are choosing to choose the sex of their baby than have before. It's still a small percentage, but the trend is clear. With in-vitro fertilization becoming ever more common, couples can easily choose the gender of their future child, and couples are doing so.

For the most part, couples are screening embryos for the right reasons - to avoid passing on dreadful diseases, said Dr. William Gibbons, who runs a fertility clinic in Baton Rouge, La., and is president of the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, which assisted with the survey.

"There are thousands of babies born now that we know are going to be free of lethal and/or devastating genetic diseases. That's a good thing," he said.

However, the survey findings also confirm many ethicists' fears that Americans increasingly are seeking "designer babies" not just free of medical defects but also possessing certain desirable traits.

I don't know how to take this, exactly. On the one hand, the ideal way to conceive a child is nature's intended way (that has evolved over MANY years) with natural sex. On the other hand, if couples must have in-vitro fertilization (and I have no sympathy for those who do it who don't have to) why not pick what you want? Afterall, most of the fertilized embroyos will not be kept, so pick the ones you want. Still, it a terribly slippery slope and one that's being greased everyday.