According to the authors of a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine, birth certificates should no longer mention a newborn’s sex. “Sex designations on birth certificates,” claim the authors, “offer no clinical utility” and, in fact, could “cause harm.”

Interestingly, one of the authors of the article is a lawyer. That’s why, in a medical journal article, they cite the Supreme Court case on same-sex marriage Obergefell v. Hodges rather than clinical studies from anatomy or physiology. 

As Wesley J. Smith wrote, this article really has nothing to do with medicine, but everything to do with promoting “a particular view of social justice.”

Social justice advocacy has its place, but not in the pages of “the most influential medical journal in the world.”

Trying to pass ideology off as “objective scientific information” will not be beneficial for anyone’s health. It won’t be good for patients, and as Smith notes, only “contributes to the growing public distrust of the science sector.”