Sex selective abortions have been touched on a few times here already. But we’ve never really focused on the philosophical issues they raise. John Turri sent us an excellent article, and the suggestion that we take up these issues. (That was a while ago, and I’m only now getting around to it– sorry!) Here’s the thing… most feminists support abortion on demand. But if we take that really seriously we also need to support abortion for reasons of sex selection, where that is genuinely what a woman wants. Now, we can raise lots of worries about whether this is really an uncoerced choice (thanks for the link, Jender-Parents); and we can strongly criticise the social forces that bring about this preference if it’s a genuine one. But when we get done with that, what do we say about the cases where it really is uncoerced? (I would suspect that there really are such cases, by the way. And in some circumstances I can even imagine it being a morally motivated decision. If girls and women are treated badly enough in one’s society, mightn’t it seem deeply immoral to bring another girl into existence to be brutally mistreated?) I’m sure there must have been good things written on this topic by feminist philosophers. Does anyone know of some? This is clearly one of those cases that shows the weakness of framing abortion just in terms of ‘choice’, but I’d like to know more about ways to approach it. (It may also show the weaknesses of thinking just in terms of coerced/uncoerced.)