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Is preconception sex selection necessarily sexist?
1Wells College, 170 Main Street, Aurora, NY 13026, USA. lpurdy@wells.edu
Reproductive Biomedicine Online
|January 18, 2008
Summary
Sperm sorting enables easier sex selection, raising moral questions. While potentially sexist in some societies, a ban may be reasonable if it protects women, but could risk reproductive autonomy elsewhere.
Area of Science:
- Bioethics
- Reproductive Technologies
- Sociology
Background:
- Sperm sorting technology offers accessible sex selection.
- This raises significant ethical and moral questions regarding its use.
- Key issues include whether sex selection is inherently sexist and warrants regulation or prohibition.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze the ethical implications of sex selection enabled by sperm sorting.
- To determine if sex selection is necessarily sexist and under which societal contexts.
- To evaluate the justification for regulating or banning sex selection based on its societal impact.
Main Methods:
- Ethical analysis of sex selection technologies.
- Societal impact assessment of sex selection preferences.
- Review of arguments for and against prohibition.
Main Results:
- Sex selection of males is identified as sexist in societies with strong patriarchal norms, reinforcing harm to women.
- In societies without a pronounced male preference, sex selection may not be significantly harmful or sexist.
- Prohibition may be a reasonable strategy to protect women in highly sexist societies.
Conclusions:
- The ethical permissibility and societal impact of sex selection vary significantly by cultural context.
- Regulation or prohibition of sex selection may be justified in specific societies to prevent harm and extreme sexism.
- In less sexist societies, bans on sex selection could infringe upon women's reproductive autonomy without clear benefit.
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