Physicians' Experiences With and Attitudes Toward Non-Medical Sex Selection Through Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis
Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT02225171. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.
Data is sourced from official ClinicalTrials.gov public API records. Always review the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for the latest information.
Brief summary
Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.
Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) is an assisted reproductive technology (ART) by which embryos, created through in vitro fertilization (IVF), can be screened for genetic conditions or traits before they are implanted into a woman s uterus. Within the past few years, a controversial non-medical use of PGD has gained recognition as having possible significant ethical implications. Non-medical sex selection (NMSS) describes the use of PGD technology to choose the sex of a child for social, as opposed to medical, reasons. In the US and a select few other countries, it is legal to use NMSS for family balancing, or the intentional selection of an underrepresented sex to balance a family where the majority of the children are of one sex. Proponents of family balancing believe that NMSS is an expression of reproductive autonomy and is ethically acceptable on those grounds. Opponents are more likely to cite beneficence (toward the existing children and the potential future child) and justice (resource allocation and access, for example) as the basis for concerns around NMSS and family balancing specifically. In the US and other countries, healthcare providers (HCPs) are often the gatekeepers to this technology. There is little research exploring the experiences of HCPs with PGD and NMSS. The Moral Experience framework (Hunt and Carnevale, 2011) is useful for understanding the potential concerns of HCPs as well as their feelings and behaviors evoked by lived and hypothetical experiences around NMSS. Also of interest is how HCPs feel that decisions about NMSS are made and their preferences as to how they should be made. Finally, there is concern that NMSS may be the first in a line of non-medical uses for PGD and that a slippery slope toward what some describe as designer babies will follow. We are interested in eliciting the traits that HCPs believe are hypothetically appropriate or inappropriate for PGD and how they make the distinction. Interviews with HCPs (OBGYNs and reproductive endocrinologists) on these topics will be transcribed and subjected to thematic analysis in order to identify common themes. An understanding of the experiences and attitudes of this stakeholder population can help clarify current issues at individual, societal, and global levels and future directions for research and policy....
Study identification
- NCT ID
- NCT02225171
- Recruitment status
- Completed
- Study type
- Observational
- Phase
- Not listed
- Enrollment
- 14 participants
Conditions and interventions
Eligibility (public fields only)
- Age range
- 18 Years and older
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Healthy volunteers not accepted
This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.
Study timeline
- Start date
- Aug 22, 2014
- Primary completion
- Dec 30, 2014
- Completion
- Dec 30, 2014
- Last update posted
- Dec 14, 2023
2014
United States locations
- U.S. sites
- 1
- U.S. states
- 1
- U.S. cities
- 1
| Facility | City | State | ZIP | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), 9000 Rockville Pike | Bethesda | Maryland | 20892 | — |
Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.
About this trial record page
- What this page shows
- Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT02225171, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
- What this page does not do
- No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
- Where the data comes from
- Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
- Last refresh
- Last update posted Dec 14, 2023 · Synced Sep 5, 2026
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Open the official record
The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT02225171 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.