‘For me': Single mum defends banned baby act
Caitlin Bailey, from Melbourne, is a single mum with two sons and a daughter. However, she always wanted two children of each biological sex so she spent $45,000 to fly to America for IVF treatment that allowed her to fulfil this dream.
Gender selection is banned in Australia due to the ethics involved, meaning Ms Bailey had to use the services of Californian doctor Daniel Potter via Gender Selection Australia.
But, her actions divided public opinion — and now the 31-year-old influencer is defending her decision to do so. She told The Fox's Fifi, Fev & Nick that she knew she'd face a lot of judgement for going through with it but at the end of the day it was 'my body, my family'.
'People don't know me. The media will take what they want to take. I'd be silly to think they're not going to do that. I can assure you that I'm a good person and I love my kids. I would do anything for my children, at the end of the day they are the most important thing in the world to me. I'm not doing this to make other people upset or cause controversy,' she said.
'I purely made this choice for me. There are so many different arguments and opinions. It does hurt my feelings when I see negative comments. I don't want that, and I don't mean to hurt these people.'
Ms Bailey said she documented her journey on her social media account, where she boasts 60,000 followers, because there was no one on her feed like her.
'I'm not telling people, 'You should all do sex-selection, and you should do this too.' I'm just saying it's an option,' she said.
'We've got the technology and medical advancement to make this an option.'
Radio star Fifi Box defended Ms Bailey's decision, saying when she was going through IVF with her second pregnancy she thought it would be much easier to have another daughter. The Aussie media personality said she thought it was a 'shame' that Ms Bailey felt the need to defend herself.
One of the big points brought up in the last few days is how much money Ms Bailey spent, which she said came from her savings. The influencer argued that she could have spent that much money on IVF anyway, and that she was saving money because if she tried to conceive naturally she would have kept going until she had another daughter.
'I think it's more responsible to do it this way than try to have another three or four kids, and if I kept having boys I would still feel like I wouldn't have felt that content feeling,' she said.
Sex selection is banned in Australia, however it was temporarily available in New South Wales between 1999 and 2004.
Now, the only caveat is certain medical exemptions based on gender — for instance if a couple carries genes for conditions such as muscular dystrophy, which predominantly impacts males.
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