Boyd Kathryn
Solicitor, Supreme Court of New South Wales.
J Law Med. 2018 Jul;25(4):1106-1118.
Through preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), individuals can now reliably choose the sex of their baby. However, PGD is largely prohibited for individuals seeking to sex select for non-medical reasons. This article argues that to protect reproductive autonomy, individuals should be allowed to make reproductive choices, regardless of their motivations, unless those choices would cause serious harms to others. It follows that social sex selection should not be prohibited on the basis of moral objections, only when it will cause serious harm. This article considers the opposing ethical framework of parental virtues. A reproductive autonomy framework is preferred, given the challenges of determining and applying parental virtues to social sex selection. This article examines three potential harms identified by opponents to sex selection, and argues that while these remain speculative they do not justify the curtailing of reproductive autonomy.
通过植入前基因诊断（PGD），现在人们能够可靠地选择孩子的性别。然而，对于出于非医学原因进行性别选择的个人，PGD在很大程度上是被禁止的。本文认为，为了保护生殖自主权，应该允许个人做出生殖选择，无论其动机如何，除非这些选择会对他人造成严重伤害。因此，社会性别的选择不应基于道德反对而被禁止，只有在会造成严重伤害时才应被禁止。本文考虑了与之相反的父母美德伦理框架。鉴于在社会性别的选择中确定和应用父母美德存在挑战，生殖自主权框架更受青睐。本文审视了反对性别选择者所指出的三种潜在危害，并认为虽然这些危害仍属推测，但并不足以成为限制生殖自主权的理由。
