14 research outputs found
Engendering harm: a critique of sex selection for 'family balancing'
The most benign rationale for sex-selection is deemed to be âfamily balancing.â On this view, provided the sex-distribution of an existing offspring group is âunbalanced,â one may legitimately use reproductive technologies to select the sex of the next child. I present four novel concerns with granting âfamily balancingâ as a justification for sex-selection: (a) families or family subsets should not be subject to medicalization; (b) sex selection for âfamily balancingâ entrenches heteronormativity, inflicting harm in at least three specific ways; (c) the logic of affirmative action is appropriated; (d) the moral mandate of reproductive autonomy is misused. I conclude that the harms caused by âfamily balancingâ are sufficiently substantive to over-ride any claim arising from a supposed right to sex selection as an instantiation of procreative autonomy