Ethical justification for clinical research may invoke equipoise, an element of scientific uncertainty regarding the superior choice if presented with different therapeutic options. Given a relative lack of scientific knowledge available for females related to historic tendencies for research to focus predominantly on males, clinical equipoise alone when applied to the context of sex differences may not be sufficient for us to appreciate whether or how a therapy might vary in its effects depending upon participant sex. I explore the analogy of chirality or ‘handedness,’ arguing we might think of the two sexes as possessing this property: female and male are equally human, yet knowledge of the biology of one sex cannot be completely superimposed onto the other. I propose the concept of chiral equipoise, suggesting that in ethical deliberations around clinical research we consider not only the uncertainty between therapeutic options, but also ask: for which sex?

临床研究的伦理理由可能会引起平衡，如果提出不同的治疗方案，则有关上级选择的科学不确定性因素。鉴于女性相对缺乏与研究主要关注男性的历史趋势相关的科学知识，当应用于性别差异的背景下时，仅临床平衡可能不足以让我们了解一种疗法是否或如何在其影响取决于参与者的性别。我探讨了手性或“惯用手”的类比，认为我们可能会认为两种性别都具有这种特性：女性和男性同样是人类，但对一种性别的生物学知识不能完全叠加到另一种性别上。我提出了手性平衡的概念，