Blood Test Can Tell Fetus's Sex at Just 7 Weeks

First!
And the "Happy Baby" in the photo wears a cool shirt!

Technology like this would just amplify China's problem of too many boys by relieving them of putting female babies on the streets or in the garbage. I feel it will ease many couple’s minds of disposing of babies. This technology is worrisome and troubling morally. I call it almost scary in nature.

This technology is long overdue. Many parents want to know right away, and this is exactly what they need. There is nothing "troubling morally" about wanting to know the gender.

@ivriesling, there is nothing "troubling morally", know how to assemble a weapon. But it’s how you use this knowledge that worries me. Many legal abortions are required to do at a young age. Well, this completely opens the door to simply kill a baby, because of gender and it all be legal and tidy....

if someone doesnt want to spend eighteen plus years of their life caring for a gender they didnt desire, then it is their freedom to choose.

or at least now it is

and if certain countries are having issues with too many boys
( seriously who would have thought anyone would rather have more boys than girls )then they should provide incentives to not abort the girls.

@bjorn, in China the government makes incentives to have only one child per family. But socially the family worries who will take care of them as they get old. Traditionally they believe its the boy who will take care of them as they get old. If you do research about this, statistically they will toss a female baby in the trash or leave on the road or market.... Because this has been going on for a great number of years, they have a large segment of the population of young men with few woman to marry. It has grown to a large social problem. But the cycle continues. I am not appose to abortion for unplanned pregancy and violence that happens to the woman. But if a couple decides to just get ride of a baby because of gender, I think they are socially odd.

@BubbaGump,
China's over population problem is the driving force behind this. As a result of their culture, the end result is the population will take a sharp drop. While not every man will marry, the societies expectations are being met.

I am curious of the additional side effects though. I expect mate selection to be very complex there and very demanding. If it becomes mostly wealth based, poorer families will die out. If it is trait driver a more traditional evolution will take place. Either way it is one big experiment in evolution.

I agree, if someone doesn't want a baby or a certain gender, they will do whatever they can to stop it. Abortion is the most moral way, instead of having women do things that may fail to abort the baby but cause physical or brain damage the child will have to live with.

That being said education is the best birth control ever. While it is partially education about the cost of raising a baby, educated people strive to fill the need of feeling needed and valued without having lots of little ones around.

Somebody had to sign a release to post that picture of the baby on PoPSCi. To the family, I like to say, CUTE BABY!

That baby is my baby and I'm kinda pissed because I didn't sign any release whatsoever. It looks like they stole that picture off of flickr(which is where my family stores the pictures)But thank you all for the cute baby comments.

yes!!! and soon we will be able to manipulate dna to choose whether we want a boy or a girl. than later how we want him or her to look. the movie gattaca comes to mind.

On one note I did find out they had the photog's permission to use the picture. On the subject of the article, we can dye our hair, make our eyes a different color, surgically alter ourselves into what we want, even change our gender externally. SO what if parents don't want to wait until the magic 2o weeks to find out if a child is male or female? If someone chooses to abort based on gender, that is their conscience. Yes, the females may die our because all men want sons, then it leads to the inevitable end of the human race. Men cant have sons without women. Also, for those commenting, the article says the test is not available in Indonesia or China. They're still gonna have to get rid of their women the old fashioned way.

Can we use sex when we mean sex and gender when we mean gender please? They aren't the same thing - mainstream journo's I'll take it from but come on PopSci.
If a blood test can tell a foetus's behavioral, cultural and psychological traits at 7 weeks I'll eat my hat, it's biological sex I'll believe.

When I say sex, I mean biologically male or female. When I say gender I mean the sex you identify with(i.e transexuals and gender reassignment.)

The statement: "This could be good news for parents whose offspring are at risk of rare gender-related genetic disorders, like Duchenne muscular dystrophy in boys or Turner syndrome in girls." is incorrect. Parents of girls with Turner syndrome(TS) are not carriers. TS occurs during cell division and is not inheritable. For more information, go to www.turnersyndrome.org.