DOCTORS in Britain are arranging for women to undergo illegal IVF gender selection procedures abroad in order to choose the sex of their babies, an investigation has found.

Couples with no fertility problems are being charged up to £12,000 to be implanted with embryos of their chosen gender at clinics in Cyprus.

The service is an apparent attempt to circumvent rules in Britain which ban the selection of embryos by sex except when specifically necessary to avoid passing on gender-related diseases.

The couples who want a boy or girl in order to “balance” the sex ratios of their families are told that the procedure is legal in Cyprus. However, it has been banned on the island since 2001 and offenders are liable to up to two years in prison.

This weekend the Cypriot health minister launched a criminal investigation into the matter, while the country’s attorney-general issued a proclamation denouncing the practice as illegal and warning that the doctors and officials involved in Cyprus and Britain — as well as their patients — could face prosecution.

The disclosure comes as the British government prepares to unveil its plans for overhauling the existing laws on such “designer baby” procedures. The Department of Health, which has carried out a public consultation, is expected to continue banning clinics from offering non-medical sex selection of embryos.

In the investigation, an undercover reporter approached Dr Paul Rainsbury, a leading fertility specialist based in London, posing as a father with three sons who would “really like a daughter”. Rainsbury charges British couples £12,000 to have a baby with the sex of their choice.

When asked by Rainsbury if his wife had any “gynaecological problems”, the reporter said she did not and was then told that her prospects of successfully giving birth via IVF were about 60%.

“There is a 100% guarantee of the correct gender,” said Rainsbury, who asks to be paid £200 for an initial consultation at his private clinic which operates from the prestigious private Portland hospital and at another site in northeast London.

He assured the reporter that his services were very popular, saying “we have had many British people go through the process”. He explained that the gender selection procedure begins with giving the woman drugs to prepare her ovaries for egg harvesting.

This is carried out at his associated clinics, he said, in either the United States, where sex selection is legal, or Cyprus, where he passes his clients to a firm named Repromed.

Repromed is operated by the Cypriot-born Dr Panos Zavos, a controversial figure in fertility circles who once claimed to have impregnated a woman with a clone of her husband.

“It’s our branch, it was set up by them and me,” said Rainsbury.

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