The book Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War describes how NARAL supported a procedure that would allow sex selection to couples doing IVF. They would check the sex of embryos and only implant the ones of the desired sex. The procedure was pioneered for use when a couple had genetic problems, but it was soon used for sex selection.
“NARAL promoted the postconception technique, known as preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PDG) as a means of eliminating “inherited diseases” and “genetic defects.” It was already approved for screening out embryos of either sex in families that might pass down a serious inherited disease through that sex. Dr. Norbert Gleicher, chair of a chain of fertility clinics, had a number of clients who didn’t carry such a disease but felt they had too many kids of one sex or not enough of the other. They were willing to pay an extra $3,000 or so to get rid of embryos of the others….Gleicehr took the question to his company’s ethics committee, which concluded that it was not only ethical but also imperative to offer PGD for this purpose. So Gleicher put the question to the ASRM ethics committee. In late September, John Robertson, the committee’s acting chairman, sent Gleicher a letter affirming that the clinic “might ethically offer preimplantation genetic diagnosis for the sake of “gender variety” to a family. Gleicher announced that he would begin selling the service immediately….By July 2002 dozens of clinics were selling PGD in the United States…No law restricted the uses to which PGD could be put. Some doctors casually admitted to helping clients eliminate male or female embryos for nonmedical reasons. “What is medical need?” one clinic operator asked the Los Angeles Times, ”Isn’t the right to happiness and health a part of this?”
William Saletan Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War (Berkley: California: University of California Press, 2004) 274-275
A group of feminists sent a letter in protest of the practice
“Nearly concurrent with Robertson’s approval of PDG for sex selection, ads placed by American fertility practitioners offering both pre-and post-conception sex selection have targeted the South Asian community in North America…Those marketing this “service” to South Asians are surely aware that sex selection in India disfavors female children, capitalizing on the strong son preference and overall gender discrimination.”
Nahar Alam et. Al. letter to J Benjamin Younger, MD, 1/15/02
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