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Health Care Analysis
Published in: Health Care Analysis 2/2007

01-06-2007 | Original Article

Sex Selection: Some Ethical And Policy Considerations

Author: Eike-Henner W. Kluge

Published in: Health Care Analysis | Issue 2/2007

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Abstract

Sex selection, which refers to the attempt to choose or control the sex of a child prior to its birth, has become the subject of increasing ethical scrutiny and many jurisdictions have criminalized it except for serious sex-linked diseases or conditions that cannot easily be ameliorated or remedied. This paper argues that such a blanket prohibition is ethically unwarranted because it is based on a flawed understanding of the difference between sexist values and mere sex-oriented preferences. It distinguishes between ethics and public policy, and suggests a way of allowing preference-based sex selection as a matter of public policy without permitting value-based sex selection. It further argues that medically-based sex selection should be publicly funded but that preference-base sex selection should not be paid for by society, and that the prohibition against value-based sex selection should be enforced through legislation that controls the licensing of health care facilities and through disciplinary procedures against health care professionals.
Footnotes
1
Other health care professionals are also involved. In fact, sex selection, arguably, is not an inherently medical procedure since it can be done (and in fact usually is done) in laboratory contexts in which medical expertise is not important but biochemical expertise is. However the laws in most jurisdictions are structured in such a way that the facilities in which sex selection is performed must be under the direction or control of a physician. Therefore, to all intents and purposes, the ethical positioning of the physician is central.
 
2
Even if a home kit were available for sex selection, much the way that a pregnancy test for home use has been developed, that would not change the thrust of this reasoning.
 
3
In ethics, this is known as the principle of the least intrusive. For a global statement, see “Principles for the protection of persons with mental illness and the improvement of mental health care” adopted by General Assembly of the United Nations, Resolution 46/119, 17 December 1991 accessible at http://​www.​unhchr.​ch/​html/​menu3/​b/​68.​htm.
 
4
I owe recognition of the need to explicitly address this point to a reviewer of an earlier draft.
 
5
The need to explicitly consider this objection was emphasized by an anonymous reviewer of an earlier draft of this paper.
 
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Metadata
Title
Sex Selection: Some Ethical And Policy Considerations
Author
Eike-Henner W. Kluge
Publication date
01-06-2007
Published in
Health Care Analysis / Issue 2/2007
Print ISSN: 1065-3058
Electronic ISSN: 1573-3394
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10728-007-0046-8

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