Translated from Turkish by Mattia Bordignon “Visa released for tube babies from the High Committee of Religious Affairs” Ankara, Turkey 12/05/2010 “We think that it is not right to decide the gender of the babies in the application of artificial insemination”, the chairman of the High Committee of Religious Affairs Prof. Dr. Hamza Aktan said, “the matter has to be left to its natural course”. While affirming that artificial insemination is legitimate as a cure against infertility, Aktan also pointed out that this method can be implemented by married couples which cannot have a child through natural ways. Aktan stresses that “yes” has been said to the pregnancy originating from the union of eggs and sperm belonging to the couple and that “a part from this, we do not consider as legitimate any method like womb hiring, sperm donation, ovarium transplant that would lead to the union of sperm and ovarium of not married women and men or even in the case in which the union of sperm and ovarium of a married couple would be placed in the womb of another woman”. Aktan also referred that it is not right to choose the sex of the child in the artificial insemination: “In some parts and cultures of the world they give much more importance to male children. Everyone wants his son to be a male. This could be cause of the ruin of the gender balance. God’s Will is in a way against that law. We do not find proper the determination of the child’s gender. The question has to be left to the normal course: if God wants something, we have to respect it.” Remarking that the number of children can be determined in the first embryonic stage, the High Committee of Religious Affairs chairman Prof. Dr. Aktan sustained that it is not right to select the embryos which fall into the uterus and acquire living identity. Source: http://www.radikal.com.tr/Radikal.aspx?aType=RadikalDetay&ArticleID=996405&Date=18.05.2010&CategoryID=77