Socially repugnant or the standard of care: Is there a distinction between sex-selective and ability-selective abortion?

Why do most medical authorities accept, endorse, and even encourage prenatal genetic screening while opposing sex-selective abortion? The juxtaposition of these 2 practices raises questions of how they compare and whether there is a credible, ethical basis for endorsing one while condemning the other. We hope to encourage this conversation without raising broader questions about the morality of abortion, or about whether human rights should be considered applicable to fetuses. Our objective is to point out the differences in how the selective abortion of different kinds of fetuses is viewed and to explore if it is ethically defensible to treat them in radically different ways. If we agree to prohibit parents from knowing the sex of their child before birth, we do so in order to prevent discrimination based on sex. We seek to affirm the equality of both males and females and agree to limit the rights of women when they trend toward clear, purposeful “socially repugnant” sexism. We refuse to allow a practice that clearly furthers a mindset of female inferiority. In doing so, we seek to cultivate a society that furthers the United Nations principles of human rights in declaring the following: