In 2003, the United Kingdom's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) published a report entitled Sex Selection: Options for Regulation. The report outlined the findings of a 2-year review of available sex selection techniques and recommended that the United Kingdom ought not to permit any regulated technique to be used other than for medical reasons (i.e., other than for the avoidance of serious sex-linked genetic conditions). In so doing, it reflected the widespread opinion—repeatedly expressed in the public consultations that formed the cornerstone of the HFEA's review—that there is something ethically unacceptable, or at least ethically suspect, about sex selection for nonmedical, or “social,” reasons.I thank Dr. Doris Schroeder for her incisive and extremely useful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.