Gender selection: Is there a growing trend?

Gender selection is through a procedure that is gaining popularity in the united states of america. this has facilitated a huge number of people not only in america but all over the globe to choose the gender of their future child. it is said that women in asian countries prefer to have 'boys', the trend isopposite among western women. some couples get either boys or girls exclusively with successive pregnancies and hence desire to get at least one child with the preferred gender. the technology is known as 'microsort' that separates xbearing from y-bearing sperms. there is another controversialtechnique called 'pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (pgd) that uses in vitro fertilization (ivf) to create embryos outside the womb and then to implant only those of the desired gender. the w.h.o. document on 'gender and genetics' describe three core motivations for sex determination:preventing birth of genetically defective child, couple's desire for family balancing or from cultural, social or economic reasons.