Authorities seize fetus gender kits from US
Print Edition
BEIJING authorities seized fetus gender testing kits from the United States among parcels mailed to Chinese consumers who had placed orders online.
Three packs of testing kits were seized by the Beijing Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau last week, the bureau said in a press release yesterday.
The kits are said to be able to predict the sex of a fetus in the first five to 10 weeks of pregnancy, the document said, quoting the product’s user guide.
Urine turns test paper green for boys and orange for girls, it said.
The bureau said it will destroy the testing kits and demand the online platform stop such transactions.
Prenatal gender testing for non-medical reasons is banned in China, for fear that predicting the sex of the fetus may lead to abortions and worsen the gender imbalance among newborns.
Individuals and organizations that perform medically unnecessary prenatal sex prediction or sex-selective abortions can be fined up to 30,000 yuan (US$4,436) and their income from the illegal screenings and abortions confiscated, according to a revised regulation that took effect in May.
The regulation, issued by the National Health and Family Planning Commission, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce and the China Food and Drug Administration, aims to tackle China’s gender imbalance, a result of pre-birth sex prediction and sex-selective abortions driven by a cultural preference for sons.
China’s sex ratio at birth stood at 113.51 in 2015.
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