A ban by Beijing has resulted in blood samples being smuggled to clinics in HK, where business is booming
Despite a ban in mainland China, pregnant women have been sending blood samples to Hong Kong to check on the gender of their offspring, exploiting a loophole in the law.
Because of the inveterate tradition of male supremacy and patriarchal beliefs among Chinese couples, especially those in the rural west, Beijing banned blood tests at all hospitals to identify the sex of babies in 2003.
There had been numerous cases of expectant mothers wanting an abortion if the unborn baby was a girl.
However, the determination to have male offsprings to pass on family names can never be easily squashed. Now pregnant women from the mainland are using clinics in Hong Kong to discover the gender of their babies.
Those who live far away are couriering their blood samples across the border for the tests. Sex selection is prohibited under Hong Kong law, but non-locals who send their blood samples for tests to trace the sex-determining Y chromosome in fetuses – the presence or absence of the Y indicates a male or female – are often not liable for prosecution.
Fuelled by demand, private clinics and laboratories in Hong Kong providing these tests are now raking in the money, and, in partnership with their mainland agents, usually offer one-stop services from the collection of blood samples to the cross-border delivery of the samples – usually smuggling – to follow-ups after tests, according to local papers.
Such tests, priced from 3,000 yuan (US$445) to 4,000 yuan, are said to have a high accuracy rate of up to 99.99% for women who are five to seven weeks into their pregnancy.
