For the "If it's too good to be true..." file: Six New York mothers have sued a company that offered 99.9% accurate gender testing. For $275 and a blood sample (via a kit), Baby Gender Mentor claims to give gender testing to women as early as 5 weeks pregnant; the Post points out that's 2-3 months before a gender may be detected by sonogram or "amniocentesis and typically the cutoff point for abortions -- although no one suggested in the court papers that was the reason they took the test." Well, here's one's plaintiff's story: Keven Duffy wanted to "surprise her husband with the news that they were going to have a son. The couple already had a daughter, and was hoping for a boy for 'family balancing.'" The company said she was having a boy, but "a sonogram revealed they were having a girl...The flip-flop 'caused stress' in her marriage...and she and her husband have since divorced." The plaintiffs' lawyer also points out that 10-20% of the company's clients claim wrong results. Related: How Asians in the U.S. may be embracing sex selection techniques (IVF or sperm sorting) or abortion to ensure having male children. more ›

The NY Times looks at recent census data that suggests an interesting trend in Chinese, Korean and Indian families in America: "If the first child was a girl, it was more likely that a second child would be a boy... If the first two children were girls, it was even more likely that a third child would be male. Demographers say the statistical deviation among Asian-American families is significant, and they believe it reflects not only a preference for male children, but a growing tendency for these families to embrace sex-selection techniques, like in vitro fertilization and sperm sorting, or abortion." CUNY's Joyce Moy says even younger immigrants have held onto the idea that "Families depend on the male child for support," while Dr. Norbert Gleicher, director of a "fertility and sex-selection clinic in New York and Chicago, said that from his experience, people were more inclined to want female children, except for Asians and Middle Easterners." more ›