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    Gender Selection Rules up for review in Australia - please make a submission!

    Hi Aussie girls. The NHMRC released its draft review of the ethical guidelines on the use of ART in clinical practice and research last week following public submissions on the issue last year. Please please please can people make a public submission in support of changing the rules and allowing gender selection in Australia - a link to the public consultation website is below. It is a bit of an effort to write a submission, but surely less of an effort than all of the trouble we have to go to to go overseas for the procedure.

    I am about to draft a submission and I am happy for other people to see it if you want an example - I'm not promising it will be any good though!! Closing date for submissions is 17 September 2015. Lets get this through girls!

    Ethical guidelines on the use of assisted reproductive technology in clinical practice and research | NHMRC Public Consultations

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    For anyone considering ART Gender Selection PLEASE submit a review. The NHMRC had this open for public comment 12months ago and have spent the last 12months reviewing it. The fact that they have decided they can't make a decision on it yet until they have had more public consideration means they may actually change the law here.

    For anyone interested this is what I have submitted to the NHMRC

    I am writing to express my views in regards to the use of ART and gender selection here in Australia.
    I believe it should be allowed following very strict guide lines of family balancing for those families of 2 or more of the same gender.
    My Story
    I am a mother of 3 boys soon to be 4. We have tried every old wives tale gender sway technique and still have been unable to again naturally conceive the female child our family longs for.
    We both love all of our boys and would not change any of them. When I found out my 3rd child was a boy I was a little upset not because he was a boy but because it still wasn’t the little girl I have always believed I was going to have. My husband and I had always planned on 4 children so we still had one more chance. I had lost a little girl. My first pregnancy was a girl but sadly I miscarried her at 10weeks (trisomy 16 – a completely random event and most common form of early miscarriage). I knew it was possible for us to conceive a girl and at the time we didn’t really want to invest all our savings into traveling overseas for IVF/PGD gender selection. We believed we could have a girl naturally with a lot of effort on us to use the sway techniques I had spent endless hours researching.
    When we fell pregnant again I was positive it was a girl, we had put all our effort for months into swaying and surely it had worked. I decided to go with the new genetic testing to find out the gender early. Having 3 boys already the comments when people find out you are pregnant again are very ‘it has to be a girl’, ‘I bet you hope it’s a girl’ etc. This actually makes gender disappointment even worse and I wanted to stop these comments before they began so I wanted to find out gender before we announced it to anyone.
    At 11 weeks I found out I was having another little boy. My world came crashing down. Whilst I was happy he was healthy this time being our final child my lifelong dream of having a daughter was gone in an instant. I still haven’t announced this pregnancy as I now feel very protective over this little man and worry people will feel he is unwanted as they know I would have loved a daughter. Again this is not the case but I feel I need to protect him from people and their thoughtlessness. Society is apparently against gender selection but the pressure they put on couples to have both boys and girls is incredible and anyone who has a one gender family receives endless bombardments of comments about having a child of the opposite gender. I have random strangers come up to me and say I have to have a girl as being a mother to a girl is completely different to that of being a mother to a boy, again thoughtless comments that don’t help. People who can clearly see I’m pregnant ask and I say it’s a boy but I have to follow up with a 20 minute speech about us being over the moon happy it’s another boy and yes it will be extremely crazy in our house but we wouldn’t change if for the world. This is normally followed up by wow you will be completely outnumbered. Yes thank you for that completely obvious observation.
    This grief though was something I had never felt before and to make it worse I had to keep it to myself. I went through all the guilt of, I should be happy I have another healthy gorgeous boy on the way all whilst I was trying to come to terms with essentially losing my daughter. Ethically in Australia I could have legally chosen to abort this baby and as we only ever wanted 4 children and if I had aborted we could try again for a girl. It was before 12weeks and it was heavily affecting my mental health. In saying this although it did cross my mind as it was an option, I personally would never ever abort my baby he is still my baby and I love him with all my heart and I could never live with myself for doing something like that but I do know of couples using this option as it is the only form of gender selection available to them here in Australia. So the ultimate question we have to ask ourselves is: It is less ethical to abort a life already created or let couples chose the gender whilst it’s still just a clump of cells? The NIPT blood test enables couples to find out the gender of their unborn baby before 12weeks so has created a loop hole where couples can legally terminate the child of unwanted gender. We are progressive enough in this country to allow abortion but not gender selection for family balancing of usually large families?
    The next few months I found myself really struggling and this is not something I am used to. I have never found having 3 kids hard I have always considered myself a natural mother, but I started falling into a form of depression. I was completely drowning and I couldn’t work out why. I started talking to a counsellor and eventually realised I was grieving but it was a hidden grief that I was even trying to hide from myself as I believed I wasn’t allowed to feel this. I wasn’t able to be a good mother, or wife or anything really.
    I would avoid friends with daughters; I wouldn’t look directly at girls, no matter what age because looking at these girls I would find myself unconsciously imagining what she would be like. Would she have brown hair and eyes like me, or sandy blonde hair and green eyes like dad? Would she be smart and into study or more sporty? Would she be a girlie girl or more of a tom boy like me? I was trying to completely block this entire part of me out and it was literally killing me.
    Eventually when I realised this is what was happening and my husband and I sat down and spoke about it all at great length as we had only ever planned on 4 children, so not only were we now looking at 5 we were looking to do it in a very scientific and risky and expensive way. Not a decision you make lightly. I do have a scientific background so making our little girl through IVF although not the way we ever thought we would it would give us our dream. My husband is religious but when he realised that if we continued to try naturally it would still likely be more boys and he could see the affect it was having on me. Mother Nature really wasn’t giving us a helping hand so science is our best option. We now plan to head over to the U.S. next year to get our little girl unless Australia changes the law here which we are really hoping they will. If we can go overseas and have it done why can we not have it done here?
    Societies Arguments
    1. Stereotyping
    Some people say we are stereotyping her or creating this expectation of what a girl should be. I was a tom boy preferred cars and sports over dolls, make up and doing my hair. I rarely wore dresses and skirts and still don’t now. I like action movies over romantic comedies. I don’t care who she becomes just that she has a chance to become. I have always wanted to be a mother of a daughter not just a mother of only boys. People comment that I am lucky to have only boys as they are much easier, that I only have 4 penises’ to worry about not a million: Yes people do actually say this and to even my surprise it’s rather often! They simply just do not understand. For me none of this matters. What the future holds for her we do not know we hope she can forge her own path and become who and what she wants to be, the same wants and wishes I have for all my children. Comments like this though are stereotyping. She may like girls not boys just like one of my sons might like boys not girls. None of this matters to us. I have kept what dolls I did have as a little girl and my wedding dress and other odd things over my lifetime to give to her as I always just believed I would have a daughter one day. She may not want any of this but I will still give it to her for her to decide.
    Before we decided to go ahead and travel to the U.S. to get our little girl, I was trying to come to terms with only ever being a mother in law. Most people don’t understand the gravity of this. Majority of women do not like their mother in laws. Having this faced upon me really opened my eyes to the unnecessary disrespect many women show their mother in laws. This now absolutely breaks my heart.
    I will never get a chance to get excited about shopping for formal dresses or wedding dresses or suits if she prefers suits, these material things are not important. I will always be the mother in law when it comes to my grandchildren. My daughter and I might not be close so these kinds of things still might not happen but I will always be there for her as I would be my sons but when it comes to the grandkids the mother will majority of the time always turn to her own mother.
    2. Playing God and Genoside
    Some people say it’s playing god but In Australia will allow female gay couples or single women to use IVF to have a family. I think this is wonderful but this is along the same lines. These couples and women can’t have a baby naturally so we allow science to give them that baby they desire. My husband and I can’t have a daughter naturally so we want to turn to science to help us. Just as infertile couples can’t naturally have kids, if we want to enter into this argument god has decided for them to not naturally be able to have kids yet we now with science can help them achieve this. Again I do think this is absolutely wonderful but the playing god argument can’t be used as ultimately we already are.
    Another argument against this is I hear often even by members of the NHMRC is that it opens it up for possible genoside where we start selecting for blonde hair and blue eyes etc. Besides the fact that this isn’t actually even scientifically possible yet the NHMRC has the ability to put strict laws into place to stop this kind of thing happening. The people usually extreme enough to want things like this will go to any length to achieve it and someone like Hitler comes to mind.

    Scenarios for allowing Gender selection ART here in Australia based on the case studies outlined in the review
    Case Study 1: Most couples who look to do ART gender selection are doing so to balance their big families. These big families are usually created as a result of that family trying to naturally conceive the baby of the desired gender. This in itself creates a strain on the health care system as its leading to bigger and bigger families. I have already greatly upset the gender balance by having 4 boys. Allowing it for families with 2 or more of the same gender already would be the best and most logical scenario.
    Case Study 2: Allowing a family to have a child based on a particular gender as they tragically lost a daughter etc, this couple already having a daughter is likely to have one naturally again but If they then went on and had 2 boys and still no girl then they could turn to gender selection to have the little girl they long for. If they already have 2 boys then they already fall in the category anyway. Whilst we would all love to have a pigeon pair as 2 kids is exceptionally easier I personally don’t think family balancing comes into play until you have 2 or more children of one gender.
    Case Study 3: Many couples each year already travel overseas for IVF/PGD gender selection for family balancing reasons. To allow these families to do it here in Australia will definitely reduce those risks associated with other Doctors and laboratories that aren’t required to follow the same high standards and practices set here in Australia. It will also help to keep the money here in Australia. As this is a complete personal choice no one that does it expects to have the government or health insurers pay for the PGD/IVF. Not only will it reduce the risks associated with the pregnancy and birth, by allowing the couple to choose a child of the gender they are longing for may stop them from continually trying for that gender resulting in increasingly larger family which will definitely impact the health care system.
    Being able to do it here in Australia will also mean less disruption for those families. Traveling overseas for 2 weeks affects work and schooling, will also mean unknown babysitters to look after kids during medical procedures whilst overseas etc. All of this opens up more risks for the families involved.
    Case Study 4: The daughter we conceived through ART would have never ever had a chance at life if we hadn’t gone down this path. To say that it then means their life is controlled from that point on is invalid. Parents that control a child’s life or a child that feels controlled would have done so or felt this way whether that child was conceived naturally or otherwise. Saying it was a result of being conceived through ART is just looking for something to blame. All children conceived through IVF could then use this argument. I will openly tell my daughter that’s how she was conceived and to me this will mean she will know how wanted and how special she actually is.
    I have no expectations of what my daughter will turn out like. As with all my kids I hope I can help them become the men and women they want to be.
    Conclusion
    So In summary I think ART Gender selection should be available here in Australia under strict guidelines of family balancing for those families with 2 or more of the same gender. No Medicare or private health insurance should be required to cover the costs of the IVF/PGD. In allowing it here in Australia it will help to reduce the risks associated with conducting the IVF overseas in laboratories with lower standards than those set in Australia. It will also help to reduce the strain placed on the health care system by helping to limit the ever increasing family size of those families having more children in search of the desired gender.
    Finally the biggest point that needs to be made is that it will stop the abortion of those unborn babies simply because they aren’t of the desired gender. Again is it less ethical to let a couple choose a baby based on Gender before the life is created or to allow them to destroy that life based on gender?

  4. #3
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    Awesome great work mummabear!!


    I'll have to start on my review!


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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    I have submitted my own 4 page argument in favour of gender selection already. My brief summary at the end was as follows:

    In summary:


    My strong and personal belief on gender selection is that it should be available nation wide for all people who desire to access it. It would minimise medical risks in travelling overseas and receiving ineffective care, and also lower the risk of severe mental illness and suicide in the parent/s.
    There is little evidence to suggest that family balancing would cause a discrepancy between the gender percentages in Australia. 
Not every couple who plans on a child would gender select. There would, in reality, be few who undertake the procedure, as shown by Dr. Potter's statistics.
 With strict guidelines and laws in place, gender selection could easily be implemented into the IVF structure and offered to patients. 
The technology to perform the procedure already exists, the only thing stopping it from proceeding are these Ethical guidelines.
    I tried to be as professional as possible without using too much of my personal thoughts and feelings, instead using facts and the general consensus of some.

    I hope many of us put forward something and help get the law changed!! I would love to see it legal in Australia.

    Planning on TTCing a girl!

    Mum to a beautiful little boy.

    I have PCOS.

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    Getting my submission ready and I know there are girls not on the board doing theirs so hopefully we are heard this time.
    Mum to 3 lovely boys. 4HT cycles. Onto swaying.

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    thankyou Mummabear you've inspired me to do a submission. Im now 42y.o and although it may not happen for me in australia, i do hope it will help future couples out there one day to have it available in australia. We are going to usa in august for our gender selection and as excited as i am, i do have trepidation travelling such a long distance with 2 little girls, and driving on the other side of the road- and other little things because we are so faraway from home.

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    You girls are amazing - excellent work! I've nearly finished my submission and my husband will do one as well.

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    I have completed my submission and now have everything crossed for a positive outcome this time round. Here is hoping this is a step closer to my own baby girl. :]
    Pink1inheaven2004 2005 2007 2009 Hoping for HT 2014

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    Does anyone know when we will know the outcome? We are planning to go to the U.S next year, but if it became available here in the next couple of years I would just wait. Have my fingers and toes crossed!!

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    Quote Originally Posted by Soontobe4 View Post
    Does anyone know when we will know the outcome? We are planning to go to the U.S next year, but if it became available here in the next couple of years I would just wait. Have my fingers and toes crossed!!
    The last email I got said it should be 2016 that a decision will be made.
    Mum to 3 lovely boys. 4HT cycles. Onto swaying.

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