A Right to Choose?: Sex Selection in the International Context

While there is some debate among doctors, ethicists, and the general public about the level of medical necessity that should justify a sex-selection procedure, most accept that sex selection for medical reasons is beyond ethical reproach, and in some situations, should even be encouraged.9 However, elective, non-medical sex-selection, which is often performed for social or financial reasons, is the subject greater scrutiny and impassioned ethical debate.10 Currently, doctors and geneticists are able to diagnose more than five hundred separate medical conditions in a developing fetus.11 Among these conditions are devastating genetic diseases such as hemophilia, Down syndrome, cystic fibrosis, Huntington\u27s disease,12 and Hunter syndrome