In India, the politicisation of sex selective abortion has resulted in legislative measures designed to prevent the misuse of ultrasound for purposes of sex determination during pregnancy. In Australia, however, sex determination remains a largely unregulated component of routine ultrasounds during pregnancy. As an anthropologist, what I find interesting about this contrast is not that India “needs” regulation more than Australia, but that it is revealing of the assumptions surrounding people’s use of ultrasound in these respective cultural landscapes. The truism that reproductive technologies are appropriated differently as they move through various socio-cultural contexts was the premise that drew me to investigate the use of ultrasound for sex determination in the context of my own culture, urban Australia, in preparation for a research project on similar issues in India. The lack of ethical debate on ultrasound and sex determination in Australia could be seen to reflect an assumption that Australian culture is one in which sex bias is negligible. Ethicists recognise that “obstetric ultrasonologists manage patients who present issues at the cutting edge of much current ethical debate.” (1) The development of ultrasound technology has expanded the ability of ultrasonologists to detect markers of foetal abnormalities, generating new ethical dilemmas concerning patient counselling. However, the ethical imperatives of “nondirective counselling” and “patient autonomy” are aimed primarily at debating prenatal diagnostic issues surrounding medical abortion and the risk of foetal abnormalities. Ethical concepts relating to “social” medicine such as sex selection are secondary. And yet, as with many other components of routine ultrasound during pregnancy, the decisions and experiences relating to sex determination have the potential to be both emotionally and morally fraught. As De Crespigny and Savulescu note, “the speed of development of prenatal diagnostic techniques has been little short of explosive” (1: 213), creating new ethical challenges for obstetric ultrasound. In the past, ultrasound technology was too unreliable for widespread practice of sex determination during pregnancy. The rapid development of the clarity of images has nullified this premise and the practice of sex determination - although still not definitive - is a popular component of routine ultrasounds conducted at 18- 20 weeks of pregnancy. Social science analyses of ultrasound point to the ways in which the lack of definitive results using ultrasound for sex selection feeds into the perception that certain groups, particularly East Asian and South Asian women, ARTICLE Everyday ethics: sex determination and ultrasound in Australia VICTORIA LOBLAY Department of Anthropology, Macquarie University, NSW 2109, AUSTRALIA email : victoria.loblay@scmp.mq.edu.au are especially interested in the sex of the foetus (2, 3). Indeed, some sonographers told me of hospitals where they had worked, both in the UK and in Australia, where suspicions of sex selective abortions among minority populations had resulted in bans on the practice of sex determination. However, rapid advancements in the clarity of ultrasound images, and the absence of regulatory guidelines on the practice, have meant that sonographers in this clinic are charged with the responsibility for negotiating the practice of sex determination. This paper details ethnographic research undertaken in the ultrasound department of a public hospital in Sydney, Australia during May-December 2007. This research is part of a larger PhD project, funded by an Australian Postgraduate Award, investigating the impact of prenatal diagnostic technology on the experience of pregnancy in India and Australia. Ethics approval for this research was obtained from both Macquarie University Ethics Review Committee (Human Research) and the Ethics Review Committee at the public hospital in Sydney. In this particular clinical setting, ultrasound is not performed for the sole purpose of sex determination. However, aside from this restriction, the practice of sex determination during routine ultrasound is governed neither by ethical guidelines nor by policy imperatives. In terms of bioethical issues, examining the practice of ultrasound and sex determination in the absence of formal regulatory mechanisms is useful for illuminating the process of what I call “everyday ethics.” It has been recognised by the national bioethics body of Australia, the National Health and Medical Research Council, that “ethical conduct is more than simply doing the right thing. It involves acting in the right spirit, out of an abiding respect and concern for one’s fellow creatures.” We might imagine “everyday ethics” along these lines to be the day-to-day clinical activities that constitute a moral territory lying outside of formal ethics guidelines. I would argue that anthropology with its methodological focus on ethnography and everyday practice, is particularly well placed to study this unregulated territory and should play a much greater role in informing and expanding Australian bioethics debates beyond abstract philosophical discussions that tend to dominate the field at this point. Based on data gathered through participant observation and qualitative interviews with staff and patients at the ultrasound department of the public hospital, I examine, in this paper, the pivotal role of sonographers in negotiating the moral territory of sex determination. In particular, I examine the everyday Indian Journal of Medical Ethics Vol VI No 4 October - December 2009 [ 188 ]