Aussie mum sparks national debate after revealing she travelled to the US to seek IVF and choose the gender of her fourth child

An Australian mother has sparked a national debate after she travelled to the US for fertility treatment to choose the gender of her fourth child.

Influencer Caitlin Bailey told the Herald Sun that she spent $45,000 to attend a fertility clinic in Los Angelos to conceive a baby girl.

The mother of two boys and one girl aged between one and five always wanted two of each sex, so she contacted Gender Selection Australia (GSA) about conceiving another girl as a single parent.

The clinic puts Australian families in touch with Californian-based fertility doctor Daniel Potter, who specialises in gender selection to balance families as well as genetic disease screening.

Gender selection to balance families is generally banned in Australia, so hundreds of Australian families travel overseas to choose the gender of their baby via IVF, according to GSA’s website.

The practice is only permitted in Australia to reduce the risk of transmitting serious genetic conditions, diseases or abnormalities from future generations.

Connect IVF scientific director Lauren Hiser said while it was possible to know the sex of an embryo prior to it being transferred to a woman’s uterus, sex could only be selected in Australia when a genetic component was involved in IVF.

Gender selection through IVF was available in NSW between 1999 and 2004, which Ms Hiser said was used mostly for family balancing reasons so people could select the sex they were desiring before pregnancy.

“Whenever people hear about sex selection, they are always very concerned that people are selecting boys over girls, that’s the first thing that comes to people’s mind,” she said.

“If you look into the data when it was available in NSW, between 1999 and 2004 the ratios did not change.

“In the patients that were able to select based solely on sex, they were actually choosing more girls and doing it for family balancing reasons.

“But sex selection is happening in Australia, it’s just not happening within the IVF realm.”

A La Trobe University study found that Australian families were terminating pregnancies following non-invasive prenatal testing to find out the sex of their child.

Researchers found a cultural preference for sons among some ethnic groups led to more boys than girls being born in Victoria.

The naturally occurring ratio worldwide was 105 boys born to every 100 girls; however, the study showed there were 108 and 109 boys born respectively to Indian and Chinese-born mothers for every 100 girls born between 1999-2015 in Victoria.

La Trobe Judith Lumley Centre lead researcher Kristina Edvardsson believed some women may be terminating pregnancies after discovering they were expecting a girl and, in other cases, travelled overseas to access non-medical sex selection services through assisted reproduction.

“We know even Australian-born women and men can choose to go overseas and select the sex of their baby, but what we can see from the sex ratios in the Australian-born group is that it’s not skewed to any gender,” she said.

Ms Hiser said gender selection and whether it should be introduced to minimise harm was an ethical discussion.

“If there are people already getting pregnant, then testing a pregnancy and choosing to terminate, well, could we as an industry stop that from happening?” she said.

“Could we select an embryo before it becomes a pregnancy so people do not have to go through medical terminations or anything more drastic?”

Ms Hiser said other international jurisdictions introduced gender selection as a way of reducing infanticide, backyard abortions and other things that could cause harm.

“We have a group of people in Australia that are looking for the services and are willing to travel internationally to achieve that,” she said.

“We have great IVF service in Australia that can do all that, but we are sending our patients overseas to jurisdictions that may not be as well set up, that have higher risks associated and certainly higher costs.

“There’s a lot of ethical considerations to be had if we should be selecting for sex or not.”

Ms Hiser said reproductive technology laws in Australia sent a lot of citizens overseas to seek treatment.

“People looking for surrogacy, it’s not easy to do in Australia so they go overseas, certainly for sex selection and some donor situations as well,” she said.

“Because our laws don’t support it, it’s easier for people to access that outside of Australia.”

Ms Bailey’s decision has divided public opinion, with many people taking to social media to comment, saying gender selection should only be used for medical reasons, while others respected her decision.

Parents who had children through IVF also commented saying they were just happy to have a healthy baby.

“If there is a genetic issue only inherited by one particular gender, then I believe it is okay. Purely for aesthetics or gender preference, no,” one parent commented.

“I wanted daughters and was disappointed when I had my son but it didn’t take more than the first cuddle for me to fall deeply in love with him. I could imagine electing to miss out on him.”

“I guess it depends on why they are choosing. It’s it for genetics, I’m ok with that, But if it’s because a person wants a certain gender, no,” Trish Mee said on Facebook.

“Then again, it’s not my journey. Having gone through IVF, I was just happy that it worked and we now have our daughter. I didn’t care what gender we had, as long as it worked and baby was healthy.”

“Unless it’s for genetics I’m ok with it (I think) otherwise no. I’m one who suffered through years of IVF and was just thrilled with a healthy baby,” Sharon Moore said.

“I personally don’t think there’s a problem with it. Especially when genetic gender specific illnesses can be eliminated,” Catherine Leigh said.

Ms Bailey and GSA have been contacted for comment.