I previously thought Professor Winston was a fantastic man who has done some great work, but having seen an interview with him this morning on BBC Breakfast I’ve found that I have to disagree with him.

He was talking about his new TV show about IVF which includes a feature on a couple who went through IVF in order to conceive a girl (they already have 4 boys). Professor Winston was saying that he thought that using IVF to choose the gender of a baby was perfectly acceptable in the UK and would do little to change the gender balance of the country. While I agree with that, I do feel that using IVF to choose the gender of a child would mean that there will be other embryos rejected due to being the ‘wrong’ gender. What would happen to these? I am very much of the opinion that once the sperm has fertilised the egg that there is a true potential of new life there and we should to everything possible to allow that to happen (that’s why I’m against abortion and the morning after pill). Are the unwanted embryos destroyed? I can almost understand the use of embryo screening in order to prevent a child being born with a genetic/chromosomal abnormality that would lead to suffering, but I still find it hard when I consider the ‘normal’ embryos that may be produced and not allowed to develop.

I know this is kind of muddled, and I’m still trying to get my ideas completely straight, but I really wanted to try and get this out to try and help me. What do you think?