sex predetermined at the moment of 'conception, was born on Saturday amidst celebration, but also criticism of sex selection and its ethical implications.
Teresa came to light a month early at the the Pine Villa Clinic in Naples where gynecologist and sex selection expert, Raffaele Magli, performed the 'delivery by caesarian section.
Teresa's parents, Achille, 32 and Giuseppina, 28, decided to seek _help after attempting
unsuccessfully for seven years to have children.
Teresa's mother who was unable to conceive because of bilateral occlusion of the fallopian tubes that join ovaries to uterus.
The sex selection method Dr Magli used was first developed in the United States and has produced some 100 babies in America and Japan. It involves sorting out sperm cells according to the chromosomes that determine sex. Doctors fertilise egg in a test tube with only x chromosomes to produce a female or only y chromosomes
to-produce-a male Couples can thus avoid transmitting hemophlia, for instance, by choosing to have only female children since only males carry the disease.
Mgr Elio Sgreccia, an advisor to the Vatican and Professor of Bioethics at Rome's Catholic University, said sex selection "opens the road to terrible consequences." He welcomed baby Teresa, saying "the birth of every child must be greeted with joy regardless of the methods used." But he went on to reiterate the Catholic Church's firm opposition to all test tube conception, and to
preduct worse times _to_eozne__