In his spirited response to Robin Sparrow (J Med Ethics, 37:5), John Harris insists he is ...misunderstood. "No sane person", he writes, "would recommend the exclusive production of females as a reproductive method of choice".

Nor, of course, does Sparrow whose point was that the eugenic enthusiasms of Harris and others for genetic selection, and the elimination of "harmful" choices, leads to positions no sane person would otherwise endorse.

Harris, for example, insists repeatedly that rational parents should choose the best for their children-to-be, reducing "harm" by which he means conditions of congenital difference and life-shortening or threatening conditions. Sparrow argues that since in industrial societies women live longer as a class than men then a parent embracing Harris' point of view would choose a female over a male child.

If we were all as rational as Harris wants us to be then all would choose the same and, Voila! No men.

Sparrow's deeper point, I think, is that the idea of "harm" that Harris offers so confidently is fraught with outcomes like this. So, too, is his "rationality" and its logics of self-interested parental choice. His utilitarianism is individualistic, not social, and thus goes no further than the prepugnant conclusion (to me) of a no-male society. Harris doesn't refute the criticism, alas. He only takes issue with the method of its explication.

Tom Koch, Prof.

Conflict of Interest:

None declared