Today marks the fortieth anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision establishing a constitutional right to abortion. Advocates of Roe and abortion rights frequently portray abortion as a matter of “women’s rights” or as a “women’s issue.” Abortion, it is said, is crucial to women’s equality – to the ability of women to control their own lives and destinies. As for the fetus, the usual argument is that fetal human life is not yet, really, actual human life but only “potential life” and thus not truly a human person. Abortion is thus morally allowable and, for the sake of advancing the freedom and equal social status of women, must be left to a woman’s unrestricted choice. 

So the argument goes. But the gender-equality-female-empowerment case for abortion rights is vulnerable to a simple question: What do you think of sex-selection abortion?