Gay men buy designer babies
By By CLODAGH HARTLEY , thesun.co.uk
Posted: March 27, 2007
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Lab ... an expert carries out IVF |
BRITISH gay men are paying a US clinic £33,000 a time to
create a designer baby.
Twenty couples have already used the specialist surrogacy scheme
for “two-dad” families — 15 choosing to have
a boy.
Another 25 have made inquiries.
They are turning to the US because of the shortage of donated
eggs and surrogate mothers in Britain.
The Fertility Institutes clinic in Los Angeles buys eggs from
university students aged 18 to 27. They are fertilised by IVF
with sperm from one of the men and implanted in a different
woman, who gets £15,000 to act as surrogate mum. The scheme
is designed to maximise the chance of an intelligent and healthy
tot.
Clinic director, Dr Jeffrey Steinberg, said: “University
students are not interested in carrying the baby. The surrogates
are interested but a lot of the time they are blue collar. We
get the best egg donors and the best women to carry the babies,
which is the perfect combination.”
It is thought to be the world’s first scheme for gay
men — who face difficulties in Britain where it is illegal
to pay surrogate mums and egg donors.
Britain is making easier for lesbians to start a family. Last
year, Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt introduced laws proposing
women should be allowed IVF without a father for the baby.
Critics of the US programme say it is the “ultimate in
the manufacture of the bio-baby”.
Anti-IVF group Comment on Reproductive Ethics said: “On
the one hand, in the UK, we are saying that a child doesn’t
need a father, but in America we are saying that two fathers
is a good idea.”
Article at: thesun.co.uk
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