Justice in the Context of Family Balancing

Science, Technology, and Human Values 38 (2):271-293 (2013)
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Abstract

Bioethics and feminist scholarship has explored various justice implications of nonmedical sex selection and family balancing. However, prospective users’ viewpoints have been absent from the debate over the socially acceptable bounds of nonmedical sex selection. This qualitative study provides a set of empirically grounded perspectives on the moral values that underpin prospective users’ conceptualizations of justice in the context of a family balancing program in the United States. The results indicate that couples pursuing family balancing understand justice primarily in individualist and familial terms rather than in terms of social justice for women and girls or for children resulting from sex selection. Study participants indicated that an individual’s desire for gender balance in their family is ethically complex and may not be inherently sexist, immoral, or socially consequential, particularly given the social context in which they live. Our findings suggest that the social conditions that contribute to prospective users’ desires for gender balance in their families may direct them away from recognizing or engaging broader social justice concerns relating to sexism and stratified reproduction.

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Citations of this work

Queering the Odds: The Case Against "Family Balancing".Tereza Hendl - 2017 - International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics 10 (2):4-30.
Cross-border sex selection: Ethical challenges posed by a globalizing practice.Rajani Bhatia - 2014 - International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics 7 (2):185-218.
The World’s Not Ready for This: Globalizing Selective Technologies.Lauren Jade Martin - 2014 - Science, Technology, and Human Values 39 (3):432-455.

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References found in this work

Principles of biomedical ethics.Tom L. Beauchamp - 1979 - New York: Oxford University Press. Edited by James F. Childress.
Sex Selection: The Case for.Julian Savulescu - 2006 - In Helga Kuhse & Peter Singer (eds.), Bioethics: An Anthology. Blackwell. pp. 2--145.
Reproductive Entanglements: Body, State, and Culture in the Dys/Regulation of Child-Bearing.Rayna Rapp - 2011 - Social Research: An International Quarterly 78 (3):693-718.

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