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Arguments for PGD and sex selection make two primary appeals. The first is to the right to reproductive choice on the part of the person or persons who seek to bear a child. Sex selection, it is argued, is a logical extension of this right. The second is an appeal to the important goods to be achieved through this technique and the choices it allows – above all, the medical good of preventing the transmission of sex‐linked genetic disorders such as hemophilia A and B, Lesch‐Nyhan syndrome, Duchenne‐Becker muscular dystrophy, and Hunter syndrome. There also are perceived individual and social goods such as gender balance or distribution in a family with more than one child, parental companionship with a child of one’s own gender, and a preferred gender order among one’s children. More remotely, it sometimes is argued that PGD and sex selection of embryos for transfer is a lesser evil (medically and ethically) than the alternative of prenatal diagnosis and sex‐selected abortion, and even that PGD and sex selection can contribute indirectly to population limitation (i.e., with this technique, parents no longer are compelled to continue to reproduce until they achieve a child of the preferred gender).

Arguments against PGD used for sex selection appeal either to what is considered inherently wrong with sex selection or to the bad consequences that are likely to outweigh the good consequences of its use. Suspicion of sex selection as wrong is lodged in the concerns identified earlier: the potential for inherent gender discrimination, inappropriate control over nonessential characteristics of children, unnecessary medical burdens and costs for parents, and inappropriate and potentially unfair use of limited medical resources for sex selection rather than for more genuine and urgent medical needs. These concerns are closely connected with predictions of negative consequences, such as risk of psychological harm to sex‐selected offspring (i.e., by placing on them too high expectations), increased marital conflict over sex‐selective decisions, and reinforcement of gender bias in society as a whole. Sometimes the predictions reach to dire consequences such as an overall change in the human sex ratio detrimental to the future of a particular society.