THIS COUPLE are so desperate for a baby girl that they terminated twin boys and are fighting to choose the sex of their next child.

The couple, who have three sons and still grieve for a daughter they lost soon after birth, are going to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal to win the right to select sex by IVF treatment.



They say they want the opportunity to have the baby daughter they were tragically denied.



An independent panel, known as the Patient Review Panel, recently rejected the couple's bid to choose the sex of their next child using IVF.



They have gone to VCAT in a bid to have that decision overturned.

VCAT recently ruled that it has the power to review the Patient Review Panel decision. It will hear the couple's case in March.



So determined are the couple to have a girl that they recently terminated twin boys conceived through IVF.



The couple said it had been a traumatic decision to make but they could not continue to have unlimited numbers of children.

If their test case fails, they say they will go to the US to conceive a girl.



The couple, who cannot be identified, conceived their three boys naturally.



The woman - in her thirties - says she loves her sons but would do anything to have a daughter.



The man said: "After what we have been through we are due for a bit of luck. We want to be given the opportunity to have a girl."



The woman, who is consumed by grief over the daughter who died soon after birth, admits she has become obsessed with having a daughter and it has become vital to her psychological health.



Victoria's Assisted Reproductive Treatment Act 2008 bans sex selection unless it is necessary to avoid the risk of transmission of a genetic abnormality or genetic disease to a child.



All IVF clinics in Australia must stay within National Health and Medical Research Council guidelines that say sex selection should not be done except to reduce the transmission of a serious genetic condition.



Australian IVF pioneer Gab Kovacs - not involved in the case - said he could not understand why the couple should be banned from having a girl.



"I can't see how it could harm anyone," he said.



"Who is this going to harm if this couple have their desire fulfilled?"



But Gene Ethics director Bob Phelps did not believe the couple should be allowed to choose. He feared it could open floodgates.



"I'm sorry they lost their daughter but, in the interests of society as a whole, they should seek some counselling for their grief and look for another way of getting a daughter into their family," he said.



"They sound like good parents and could offer a home to a child who needs one."



He suggested they could adopt from overseas.

Originally published as 'We want nothing but a girl'