Chapter Sex‑selective abortions of intersex foetuses in Europe. Social, ethical and legal considerations : IN Book: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 75 and beyond: historical, contemporary, and future perspectives

Abstract

In recent years, international human rights institutions such as the United Nations (UN) and the Council of Europe (CoE) have condemned many of the human rights violations that intersex people face. This has led to Member States introducing laws and policies that aim to tackle intersex rights violations and put an end to years of injustices against the intersex community. Nonetheless, there is an issue that often remains overlooked: sex-selective abortions that are performed even before intersex people are born. Some of the social, ethical and legal concerns surrounding these methods have been raised by intersex activists and intersex-led organisations over the years, yet the issue remains largely invisible. Recently, some parents of intersex children decided to speak up, and their testimonies have been published online stating that doctors advised them to abort the foetus upon discovering that it was intersex without providing any relevant medical justification. In this paper, we hope to contribute to the disentanglement of the said social, ethical and legal conundrum that exists around sex-selective abortions of intersex. Through the adoption of a human rights approach, we argue that the debate on the selection of intersex foetuses should form a part of the broader discussion concerning the discriminatory and harmful effects of sex-selection and should be explicitly and publicly addressed and condemned by human rights institutions in order to guarantee equal rights and gender equality for all.