Who gets born? How did New Zealand's Bioethics Council arrive at its recommendations?

The Bioethics Council's Report Who Gets Born? elicited considerable public comment with its recommendation regarding the use of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) for sex selection for social reasons. The Report was based on a process of deliberative consultation, in which determined efforts had been expended to obtain the views of ordinary New Zealanders. Consequently, the manner in which the recommendations, including this particular one on sex selective PGD, were informed by the consultation is of considerable interest. We argue that the Council is unclear about the role that the views of the public should play in its activities. It appears to place great emphasis on involving the public in formulating policy conclusions through deliberative consultation, but some of its recommendations suggest that the views of the public have only been allowed to play a limited role in its reasoning. Unfortunately, the Council's report does not provide sufficient detail of the reasoning underlying these recommendations. We argue that the Council should have adopted a more transparent style of reporting, thereby enabling the public to understand both the scope of their influence on the Council and the reasoning behind the recommendations. This would have allowed the report to be more constructively critiqued, and the controversy attendant on the release of the report to be minimised.