Hum. Reprod. Advance Access originally published online on October 23, 2006
Human Reproduction 2006 21(12):3303; doi:10.1093/humrep/del347
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Letter to the Editor |
Evolution, morality and the law: on Valerie J. Grant’s case against sex selection
Spokesman of the German Society for Reproductive Medicine, Centre for Gynaecology and Obstetrics, Medical Centre of the University of Giessen and Marburg Ltd., Giessen, Germany
E-mail: presse{at}repromedizin.de
Sir,
In her intriguing paper ‘Sex predetermination and the ethics of sex selection’, psychologist Valerie J. Grant argues that the sex of our offspring may not be a matter of chance. Growing evidence from behavioural ecology and evolutionary psychology seems to suggest that women give birth to children they are best suited to raise. Women who are better suited to raise boys bear sons and women who are better suited to raise girls bear daughters (Grant, 2006
).
Being a moral philosopher, I am in no position to dispute Grant’s empirical claim. I am, however, very much in the position to dispute her normative claim. Her theory does not have the policy implications she thinks it has. If she were right, we would certainly have to inform couples seeking sex selection about her theory. Perhaps, we would have to go even one step further and try to dissuade mothers of three sons from having a daughter. However, we cannot prevent parents from choosing the sex of their children, leave alone, outlaw social sex selection altogether (Dahl, 2003).
In claiming that we need to know more about the alleged behavioural differences between mothers of sons and mothers of daughters ‘before allowing people who are particularly suited to raising one sex to try their hand at the other’, she ignores the presumption in favour of liberty underlying Western policy-making. According to the presumption in favour of liberty, each citizen has the right to live his life as he sees fit, provided that in doing so he is not violating the rights of others. The legislator may interfere with the free choices of its citizens only to prevent serious harm to others (Dahl, 2004).
The presumption in favour of liberty implies that the burden of proof is always on those who wish to prohibit a particular action. It is they who must show that the action in question is going to harm others. In the absence of any evidence of serious harm to others, there is simply no moral justification to prevent couples from choosing the sex of their children. In other words, social sex selection is innocent until proven guilty (Dahl, 2005).
Let us assume, if only for argument’s sake, that Grant were able to provide us with conclusive evidence that children born after social sex selection are indeed seriously harmed. Suppose, it could be shown that, say, girls raised by a mother particularly suited to raise boys were at risk of being abused, neglected or abandoned. Would this be the end of social sex selection? Not at all! Why not? Because Grant’s hypothesis actually calls for a new indication for social sex selection.
According to Grant, in natural reproduction, women conceive and give birth to children they are best suited to raise. In assisted reproduction, however, there is a substantial risk that artificial insemination, IVF and, most of all, ICSI may circumvent the ‘finely tuned adaptation’ that allows a woman to bear the children she is best suited to raise. If so, fertility centres would be morally obliged to screen spermatozoa and embryos for their chromosomal sex before assisting a woman in conceiving a child. In other words, fertility specialists should not leave the sex up to chance any longer but practise social sex selection. After all, sex selection would be the optimal way to ensure that women undergoing fertility treatment are really going to have the children they are best suited to raise.
References
Dahl E. (2003) Procreative liberty: the case for preconception sex selection. Reprod Biomed Online 7:380–384.[Medline]
Dahl E. (2004) The presumption in favour of liberty: a comment on the HFEA’s public consultation on sex selection. Reprod Biomed Online 8:266–267.[Web of Science][Medline]
Dahl E. (2005) Sex selection: laissez faire or family balancing? Health Care Anal 13:87–90.[CrossRef][Web of Science][Medline]
Grant VJ. (2006) Sex predetermination and the ethics of sex selection. Hum Reprod 21:1659–1661.
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