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1Hypocrisy, Consistency, and Opponents of AbortionIn Nicholas Colgrove, Bruce P. Blackshaw & Daniel Rodger (eds.), Agency, Pregnancy and Persons: Essays in Defense of Human Life, Routledge. pp. 127-144. 2022.Arguments that claim opponents of abortion are inconsistent in some manner are becoming increasingly prevalent both in academic and public discourse. For example, it is common to claim that they spend considerable time and resources to oppose induced abortion, but show little concern regarding the far greater numbers of naturally occurring intrauterine deaths (miscarriages). Critics argue that if abortion opponents took their beliefs about the value of embryos and fetuses seriously, they would i…Read more
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152084: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity. By John Lennox. (review)The New Bioethics 1 1-2. 2024.John Lennox published 2084 in 2020, several years prior to the unveiling of OpenAI’s ChatGPT to the world in November 2022. ChatGPT and its rivals such as Google’s Gemini displayed astonishing capa...
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22Zooming in on Justice: The Case for Virtual Bioethics ConferencingAmerican Journal of Bioethics 24 (4): 60-62. 2024.In their target article, “Proposed Principles for International Bioethics Conferencing: Anti-Discriminatory, Global, and Inclusive,” Jecker et al. (2024) highlight the growing international scope o...
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17A reply to Gillham on the impairment principleMedicine, Health Care and Philosophy 27 (1): 31-35. 2024.The impairment argument claims that abortion is immoral, because it results in a greater impairment to a fetus than other actions that are clearly immoral, such as inflicting fetal alcohol syndrome. Alex Gillham argues that the argument requires clarification of the meaning of greater impairment. He proposes two definitions, and points out the difficulties with each. In response, I argue that while the impairment argument’s definition of greater impairment is narrow in scope, it is sufficient fo…Read more
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60Defending the impairment argumentJournal of Medical Ethics 50 (5): 342-344. 2024.Kyle van Oosterum and Emma Curran have recently argued that the impairment argument against abortion is weak and accomplishes little. They also claim that impairment fails to explain what makes giving a child fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) immoral, which is an important premise of the argument. Here, I explain that the impairment argument is not as weak as they believe. Further, I argue that impairment offers a superior explanation for what makes giving a child FAS immoral than their proposal base…Read more
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56Is pregnancy really a good Samaritan act?Christian Bioethics 27 (2). 2021.One of the most influential philosophical arguments in favour of the permissibility of abortion is Judith Jarvis Thomson’s violinist analogy, presented in ‘A Defense of Abortion’. Its appeal for pro-choice advocates lies in Thomson’s granting that the fetus is a person with equivalent moral status to any other human being, and yet demonstrating—to those who accept her reasoning—that abortion is still permissible. In her argument, Thomson draws heavily on the parable of the Good Samaritan, arguin…Read more
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508Contraception is not a reductio of MarquisBioethics 37 (5): 508-510. 2023.Don Marquis’ future-like-ours account argues that abortion is seriously immoral because itdeprives the embryo or fetus of a valuable future much like our own. Marquis was mindful ofcontraception being reductio ad absurdum of his reasoning, and argued that prior tofertilisation, there is not an identifiable subject of harm. Contra Marquis, Tomer Chaffercontends that the ovum is a plausible subject of harm, and therefore contraception deprives theovum of a future-like-ours. In response, I argue th…Read more
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982Abortion policies at the bedside: a responseJournal of Medical Ethics 1 (12): 852-853. 2023.Hersey et al have outlined a proposed ethical framework for assessing abortion policies that locates the effect of government legislation between the provider and the patient, emphasising its influence on interactions between them. They claim that their framework offers an alternative to the personal moral claims that lie behind legislation restricting abortion access. However, they fail to observe that their own understanding of reproductive justice and the principles of medical ethics are simi…Read more
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820Artificial Consciousness Is Morally IrrelevantAmerican Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 14 (2): 72-74. 2023.It is widely agreed that possession of consciousness contributes to an entity’s moral status, even if it is not necessary for moral status (Levy and Savulescu 2009). An entity is considered to have...
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48The Non-identity Problem and the Psychological Account of Personal IdentityPhilosophia 50 (2): 425-436. 2022.According to the psychological account of personal identity, our identity is based on the continuity of psychological connections, and so we do not begin to exist until these are possible, some months after conception. This entails the psychological account faces a challenge from the non-identity problem—our intuition that someone cannot be harmed by actions that are responsible for their existence, even if these actions seem clearly to cause them harm. It is usually discussed with regard to pre…Read more
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27Hypocrisy, Consistency, and Opponents of AbortionIn Nicholas Colgrove, Bruce P. Blackshaw & Daniel Rodger (eds.), Agency, Pregnancy and Persons: Essays in Defense of Human Life, Routledge. pp. 127-144. 2022.Arguments that claim opponents of abortion are inconsistent in some manner are becoming increasingly prevalent both in academic and public discourse. For example, it is common to claim that they spend considerable time and resources to oppose induced abortion, but show little concern regarding the far greater numbers of naturally occurring intrauterine deaths (miscarriages). Critics argue that if abortion opponents took their beliefs about the value of embryos and fetuses seriously, they would i…Read more
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40Are heartbeat bills ethically defensible?Bioethics 1 (2): 219-220. 2022.Heartbeat bills are laws prohibiting abortion in most circumstances once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, and are common in US states. They have been criticised as poorly designed and disingenuous. In this letter to the editor I examine these criticisms.
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113Inconsistency arguments still do not matterJournal of Medical Ethics 48 (7): 485-487. 2022.William Simkulet has recently criticised Colgrove et al ’s defence against what they have called inconsistency arguments—arguments that claim opponents of abortion act in ways inconsistent with their underlying beliefs about human fetuses. Colgrove et al presented three objections to inconsistency arguments, which Simkulet argues are unconvincing. Further, he maintains that OAs who hold that the fetus is a person at conception fail to act on important issues such as the plight of frozen embryos,…Read more
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129Why inconsistency arguments fail: a response to ShawThe New Bioethics 28 (2): 139-151. 2022.Opponents of abortion are commonly said to be inconsistent in their beliefs or actions, and to fail in their obligations to prevent the deaths of embryos and fetuses from causes other than induced...
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24Losing our Dignity: How Secularized Medicine is Undermining Fundamental Human Equality (review)The New Bioethics 28 (4): 380-382. 2022.Charles Camosy’s Losing Our Dignity is a concise and disturbing account of how our long held understanding of human equality, largely inherited from Christianity, is gradually being undermined by t...
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38Defending the substance view against its criticsThe New Bioethics 28 (1): 54-67. 2021.Recently, the substance view of persons has been heavily criticized for the counterintuitive conclusions it seems to imply in scenarios such as embryo rescue cases and embryo loss. These criticisms...
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585Public health ethics and abortion: A response to SimkuletBioethics 36 (4): 469-471. 2021.Bioethics, Volume 36, Issue 4, Page 469-471, May 2022.
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113Agency, Pregnancy and Persons: Essays in Defense of Human Life (edited book)Routledge. 2022.This book provides extensive and critical engagement with some of the most recent and compelling arguments favoring abortion choice. It features original essays from leading and emerging philosophers, bioethicists and medical professionals that present philosophically sophisticated and novel arguments against abortion choice. The chapters in this book are divided into three thematic sections. The first set of essays focuses primarily on unborn human individuals--zygotes, embryos and fetuses. In …Read more
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273COVID-19 Vaccination Should not be Mandatory for Health and Social Care WorkersThe New Bioethics 28 (1): 27-39. 2022.A COVID-19 vaccine mandate is being introduced for health and social care workers in England, and those refusing to comply will either be redeployed or have their employment terminated. We argue th...
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45Strengthened impairment argument does not restate MarquisJournal of Medical Ethics 47 (12): 841-842. 2021.With Perry Hendricks, I recently outlined a strengthened version of the impairment argument for the immorality of abortion. Alex Gillham has argued that our use of Don Marquis’ deprivation of a ‘future-like ours’ account entails we were merely restating Marquis’ argument for the immorality of abortion. Here, I explain why SIA is more than just a reframing of Marquis.
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683Can prolife theorists justify an exception for rape?Bioethics 36 (1): 49-53. 2022.Prolife theorists typically hold to the claim that all human beings possess equal moral status from conception and consequently possess a right to life. This, they believe, entails that abortion is impermissible in all circumstances. Critics characterize this as an extreme anti-abortion position, as it prima facie allows no exceptions, even in cases of rape. Here, I examine whether the prolife claim regarding equal moral status is compatible with a more attractive moderate stance that permits an…Read more
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617Fine-Tuning the Impairment ArgumentJournal of Medical Ethics 47 (9): 641-642. 2021.Perry Hendricks’ original impairment argument for the immorality of abortion is based on the impairment principle (TIP): if impairing an organism to some degree is immoral, then ceteris paribus, impairing it to a higher degree is also immoral. Since abortion impairs a fetus to a higher degree than fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) and giving a fetus FAS is immoral, it follows that abortion is immoral. Critics have argued that the ceteris paribus is not met for FAS and abortion, and so we proposed the…Read more
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377The Non-identity Problem and the Psychological Account of Personal IdentityPhilosophia (2): 1-12. 2021.According to the psychological account of personal identity, our identity is based on the continuity of psychological connections, and so we do not begin to exist until these are possible, some months after conception. This entails the psychological account faces a challenge from the non-identity problem—our intuition that someone cannot be harmed by actions that are responsible for their existence, even if these actions seem clearly to cause them harm. It is usually discussed with regard to pre…Read more
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29Inconsistency arguments still do not matterJournal of Medical Ethics 1 1-4. 2021.William Simkulet has recently criticised Colgrove et al’s defence against what they have called inconsistency arguments—arguments that claim opponents of abortion (OAs) act in ways inconsistent with their underlying beliefs about human fetuses (eg, that human fetuses are persons at conception). Colgrove et al presented three objections to inconsistency arguments, which Simkulet argues are unconvincing. Further, he maintains that OAs who hold that the fetus is a person at conception fail to act o…Read more
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344Strengthening the impairment argument against abortionJournal of Medical Ethics 47 (7): 515-518. 2020.Perry Hendricks’ impairment argument for the immorality of abortion is based on two premises: first, impairing a fetus with fetal alcohol syndrome is immoral, and second, if impairing an organism to some degree is immoral, then ceteris paribus, impairing it to a higher degree is also immoral. He calls this the impairment principle. Since abortion impairs a fetus to a higher degree than FAS, it follows from these two premises that abortion is immoral. Critics have focussed on the ceteris paribus …Read more
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344Why we should not extend the 14-day ruleJournal of Medical Ethics (10): 712-714. 2021.The 14-day rule restricts the culturing of human embryos in vitro for the purposes of scientific research for no longer than 14 days. Since researchers recently developed the capability to exceed the 14-day limit, pressure to modify the rule has started to build. Sophia McCully argues that the limit should be extended to 28 days, listing numerous potential benefits of doing so. We contend that McCully has not engaged with the main reasons why the Warnock Committee set such a limit, and these sti…Read more
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1060Detached from Humanity: Artificial Gestation and the Christian DilemmaChristian Bioethics 30 (2): 85-95. 2024.The development of artificial womb technology is proceeding rapidly and will present important ethical and theological challenges for Christians. While there has been extensive secular discourse on artificial wombs in recent years, there has been little Christian engagement with this topic. There are broadly two primary uses of artificial womb technology—ectogestation as a form of enhanced neonatal care, where some of the gestation period takes place in an artificial womb, and ectogenesis, where…Read more
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34Untangling Twinning: What Science Tells Us about the Nature of Human Embryos (review)The New Bioethics 1 1-3. 2021.In their previous book,1 Samuel and Maureen Condic provided a comprehensive defence of the position that a human being's life begins at fertilisation. They briefly addressed the twinning argument,...
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672If fetuses are persons, abortion is a public health crisisBioethics 35 (5): 465-472. 2021.Pro-life advocates commonly argue that fetuses have the moral status of persons, and an accompanying right to life, a view most pro-choice advocates deny. A difficulty for this pro-life position has been Judith Jarvis Thomson’s violinist analogy, in which she argues that even if the fetus is a person, abortion is often permissible because a pregnant woman is not obliged to continue to offer her body as life support. Here, we outline the moral theories underlying public health ethics, and examine…Read more
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77Parental responsibilities and moral statusJournal of Medical Ethics 47 (3): 187-188. 2020.Prabhpal Singh has recently defended a relational account of the difference in moral status between fetuses and newborns as a way of explaining why abortion is permissible and infanticide is not. He claims that only a newborn can stand in a parent–child relation, not a fetus, and this relation has a moral dimension that bestows moral value. We challenge Singh’s reasoning, arguing that the case he presents is unconvincing. We suggest that the parent–child relation is better understood as an exten…Read more
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