Australia's health watchdog will consider overturning its ban on technology that allows parents using IVF to predetermine the sex of their children, according to reports.
The National Health and Medical Research Council is set to launch a review of the ban amid criticism from Australian fertility doctors, the Herald Sun reports.
Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis is currently only permitted for parents who suffer diseases that can be passed to children of one gender.
Dozens of Australians who do not fit that category travel to the US and Thailand every year for the procedure, which costs between $10,000 and $15,000.
IVF pioneer Gab Kovacs told the newspaper that the ban should be overturned because only parents who were extremely determined would pay for the procedure.
"It might even be in the interests of the child to have their sex selected," he said.
"If a couple so badly want a boy or a girl they are prepared to go through IVF and sex selection at great cost and effort rather than getting pregnant naturally, then maybe if they had the child naturally and it was the wrong sex it may not be looked after as well."
Melbourne IVF chairman Dr Lyndon Hale said he thinks the procedure should only be allowed when there is a significant benefit for the family.
"I don't think it should be open slather where people say, 'I have a boy and I want a girl so I can have the pair,'" he said.
Dr Hale said only a handful of his patients requested the procedure every year, and he would also call for the process to be opened up for non-medical reasons.
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