HAVE YOU EVER gazed in pity at a couple with three sons? Do you shoot sympathetic glances at families with four daughters? For the Government would have us believe that these are unbalanced families staggering under the weight of biological misfortune.

That is the only conclusion one can draw from the use of the phrase “family balancing” to describe sex selection. The use of the word “balance” is deliberate. It slips more easily off the tongue than “sex selection”, which has an unfortunate eugenic whiff about it. It is hard to argue against “balance” without seeming unreasonable. And unreasonable is exactly what the Government wishes us to think of those who oppose family balancing.

Although sex selection for non-medical reasons was banned only two years ago, the Government now wishes to overhaul the legislation. It is floating the idea that families with a certain number of children of one gender should be allowed to select the sex of further offspring. How many children are required for parents to qualify for this privilege? The magic number is undecided. Are two daughters sufficiently disappointing? Does three tip over into distress? Perhaps a quartet of sons is necessary before we can legislate in support of parents possessed of a pang for pink.

And why does a family need offspring of both sexes to be “balanced”? Those siblings are, hopefully, not going to be reproducing with one another. I know of no valid biological reason why family units should comprise both daughters and sons.

Leave alone whether we feel comfortable about sex selection at all (I don’t, and I fail to see how the moral acceptability of sex selection increases with birth order), if the Government plumps for this course it will be in the invidious position of ascribing more rights to the parents of three sons than it will to the parents of two sons. While appearing to confer greater parental freedom, the State will in reality be interfering more arbitrarily in family life.

I don’t subscribe to the slippery-slope school of opposition — careful drafting should ensure that we can select for gender but not for intelligence (although I suspect that most parents would prefer a brilliant child of either sex than an average child of a chosen sex). Rather, sanctioning sex selection commodifies children, breaches the unwritten but self-evident rule that children should be loved unconditionally, and will, in practice, give more parental rights to the rich.

And is there potential psychological fallout? What message does it send to daughters when mum and dad are prepared to spend thousands to ensure that their next child is not female? How will the youngest daughter feel — like a mistake that her parents will pay money not to repeat? Perhaps not, but is anyone gathering evidence?

We know how “family balancing” in other countries skews the balance that really matters — the national gender balance. In China, there are only 833 girls for every 1,000 boys born. In some areas of India the corresponding figure for girls is less than 800. Nature does a much better job, setting a girl:boy ratio of about 950:1,000. We should leave well alone.

• THE NEXT TIME he’s in Q’s laboratory, James Bond should make time to get his nails done. Scientists in Japan have found a way of etching data on to fingernails.

  Around five megabytes — the equivalent of about 2,500 short e-mails — can be written on to each nail using a laser and read back using an optical microscope. Our man with a tan would have the information at his fingertips, literally, for six months, the length of time it takes for a fingernail to regrow fully.

  Each pulse of light lasts only 100 femtoseconds — which is 0.0000000000001 seconds — and creates a minute depression. The pulses can be focused at three different depths in the nail, resulting in three overlying “pages” of data on each finger.

  While the technique, reported in Optics Express, has been demonstrated only on pieces of nail, Dr Yoshio Hayasaki at Tokushima University is now perfecting a system for nails attached to fingers. He believes that biometrics will be its primary purpose, and it does provide a guard against theft, loss or forgery. Nervous types who bite their nails might present this new security measure with, er, teething problems. While 007 would have to remain alert to thugs wielding nail files.

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