The deputy chairman of the HFEA, Professor Tom Baldwin, said that the vast majority of people surveyed believed that children should be allowed to develop without pressure to fulfil parental expectations. Many people described a child as a "gift", he said. "The person who is going to receive a gift doesn't know what kind of gift they are going to get. If we think of children as a kind of gift, then we need to hold back and refrain from this extra step of control that sex selection would introduce."

The HFEA's stand was even welcomed by the head of the British Fertility Society, Professor Alison Murdoch. And the director of the watchdog group Human Genetics Alert, Dr David King, commented, "sex selection is the exercise of sexism at its most profound level -- deciding who gets to live. If you are not prepared to accept and parent both a boy or a girl, you should not be a parent."

However, the weight of government opinion seems to be shifting toward the disease status. The Internal Revenue Service last year ruled that obesity is a disease for tax purposes, thereby making weight-reduction programs tax-deductible. Health officials are also studying whether weight-control therapies should be covered by public health insurance, a development which makes private insurers nervous.

"We certainly recognise and agree that obesity is a significant problem," says one federal official. "The question is whether losing weight, which people can do without ever seeing a provider [of weight control] is something a health care system ought to pay for."

One concern of the group is that the existing range of Federally- approved stem cell lines has been derived from embryonic stem cells grown on mouse cells. These could conceivably infect humans with mouse viruses. But more controversially, the existing limits on the number of embryonic stem cell lines also restrict the range of racial backgrounds which could be treated with future therapies. Afro-Americans are far more genetically diverse than white Americans and consequently more stem cell lines must be created to cater for them.

"Society may well have to choose what it values more -- ensuring that all benefit safely and fairly from advances in stem cell science, or protecting embryonic human life," said Ruth R. Faden, a Johns Hopkins bioethicist. ~ AP, Nov 11; Johns Hopkins press release, Nov 10

Spina bifida is the second most common congenital birth defect and affects 1 in 1000 pregnancies. Although most children with it lead happy and productive lives, it can lead to bladder and bowel disfunction and in severe cases paralysis from the waist down. If it is detected early enough in the pregnancy, most women choose to terminate the pregnancy.