Note: The ethical judgments on this page refer exclusively to the action — never to the person who performs it or is discarded by it. Cf. Note on ethical judgments (German).
Sex selection is the selection or discarding of embryos on the basis of their sex. It is carried out within the framework of preimplantation diagnosis (PGT).
Legal situation 2026: legal in the USA; prohibited for non-medical purposes in the EU/UK/Canada, China, and India. Medical indications (X-chromosome-linked hereditary diseases) are exempted in many jurisdictions.
Ontological Classification
- is subclass of: preimplantation diagnosis
- is subclass of: eugenic selection
- contradicts: personalist norm
Personal-Ontological Assessment
From the standpoint of personal ontology, sex selection is a form of eugenic selection: embryos are discarded not on account of a disease, but on account of an essential characteristic that constitutes precisely their concrete person.
Sex is no contingent accident, but part of the concrete bodily existence of this human being — its discarding on account of sex is a discarding of the person, not of a feature.
Sources: Research status 25 April 2026.
Further sources:
- ASRM Ethics Committee (2022): Use of reproductive technology for sex selection for nonmedical reasons: an Ethics Committee opinion. Fertility and Sterility 117(4): 720–726.
- ESHRE Task Force on Ethics and Law (2013): Sex selection for non-medical reasons. Human Reproduction 28(6): 1448–1454.
- Council of Europe (1997, with Additional Protocols): Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine (Oviedo Convention), Art. 14 (prohibition of non-medical sex selection).
- WHO/OHCHR/UNFPA/UNICEF/UN Women (2011): Preventing gender-biased sex selection: an interagency statement. Geneva.