Luara Ferracioli

Following the successful campaign to have the burqa and niqab banned from public use in France, and the continuing advocacy to have these garments banned in other Western liberal societies, I examine whether the two strongest challenges to the burqa and niqab succeed in justifying a ban on these forms of veil. Although I argue that they both fail in supporting a ban, the fact that some Muslim women may be coerced into full veiling gives liberal states a moral duty to interfere. In the light of this, I propose a comprehensive approach, which is better suited to ensure that the necessary conditions are in place for Muslim women to be the authors of their own lives.

What is wrong with anonymous surrogacy and gamete donation? Many feminists have argued that these practices are inherently exploitative or alienating. Yet, one can easily conceive of a world where donating a sperm or egg, and getting pregnant on behalf of someone else are considered highly valuable professional services, which are highly-paid and part of well regulated industries. In this ideal world, no one becomes a gamete donor or a surrogate out of economic necessity or desperation, but because there is a genuine fit between their conception of the good and the fact that procreation requires collective action. In this paper, I argue that what makes these practices morally wrong even under ideal conditions is the lack of intimacy between parties in the procreative chain.

How should states respond to the departure of talented individuals from the developing to the developed world--the so-called brain drain? In Debating Brain Drain, Gillian Brock and Michael Blake investigate whether restrictions on emigration can be justified in order to avoid the harmful effects of the brain drain. In this piece, I argue that the question of whether states have the right to limit the exit of their skilled citizens cannot be answered in isolation from the question of what global migration regime is best able to protect vulnerable persons. In particular, I argue that the responsibility to prevent the brain drain lies with recipient states, who are actually required to exclude prospective skilled immigrants when a number of conditions are met.

Do children have a right to be loved? An affirmative answer faces two immediate challenges: (i) a child's basic needs can be met without love, therefore a defence of such a right cannot appeal to the role of love in protecting children's most basic needs, and (ii) since love is non-voluntary, it seems that there cannot be a corresponding duty on the part of parents to love their child. In this essay, I defend an affirmative answer that overcomes both of these challenges. First, I argue that the right of children to be loved is grounded in the value of children leading meaningful lives. Second, I argue that the right of children to be loved gives rise to a duty on the part of the state to do all that it legitimately can to ensure that procreation and parenting follows from a truly voluntary decision on the part of its citizens.

In this essay, I argue that the privileging of romantic and familial ties by those who believe in the liberal state’s right to exclude prospective immigrants cannot be justified. The reasons that count in favour of these relationships count equally in favour of a great array of relationships, from friends to creative collaborators, and whatever else falls in between. The liberal partialist now faces a dilemma, either the scope of the right to exclude is much more limited or much broader than she previously assumed.