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7Imagine No ReligionIn Russell Blackford & Udo Schüklenk (eds.), 50 Voices of Disbelief, Wiley‐blackwell. 2009-09-10.This chapter contains sections titled: Note.
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461The case for physician assisted suicide: how can it possibly be proven?Journal of Medical Ethics 32 (6): 335-338. 2006.In her paper, The case for physician assisted suicide: not proven, Bonnie Steinbock argues that the experience with Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act fails to demonstrate that the benefits of legalising physician assisted suicide outweigh its risks. Given that her verdict is based on a small number of highly controversial cases that will most likely occur under any regime of legally implemented safeguards, she renders it virtually impossible to prove the case for physician assisted suicide. In thi…Read more
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34Appraising Black-Boxed Technology: the Positive ProspectsPhilosophy and Technology 31 (4): 571-591. 2018.One staple of living in our information society is having access to the web. Web-connected devices interpret our queries and retrieve information from the web in response. Today’s web devices even purport to answer our queries directly without requiring us to comb through search results in order to find the information we want. How do we know whether a web device is trustworthy? One way to know is to learn why the device is trustworthy by inspecting its inner workings, 156–170 1995; Humphreys 20…Read more
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376Gender Preferences and Demand for Preconception Sex Selection: A Survey Among Pregnant Women in PakistanHuman Reproduction 22 (2): 605-609. 2007.BACKGROUND: In its recent report 'Human Reproductive Technologies and the Law', the House of Commons' Select Committee on Science and Technology called for greater efforts to establish the potential demographic impact of sex selection across all sectors of UK society. Given the well-known preference for boys over girls among some communities, there is concern that a readily available service for social sex selection may upset the balance of the sexes. Of particular interest are the gender prefer…Read more
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796The Ten Most Common Objections to Sex Selection and Why They Fail To Be ConclusiveReproductive Biomedicine Online 14 (1): 158-161. 2007.After its review of the Human Fertilization and Embryology Act of 1990, the Department of Health concluded that the British Parliament ought to outlaw sex selection for any but the most serious of medical reasons. This paper reviews the most frequently expressed objections to social sex selection and concludes that there is simply no moral justification for prohibiting parents from using sex selection technology to balance their families.
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232Should Parents Be Allowed to Use Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis to Choose the Sexual Orientation of Their Children?Human Reproduction and Genetic Ethics 18 (7): 1368-1369. 2003.Extending the application of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to screen embryos for non-medical traits such as gender, height and intelligence, raises serious moral, legal, and social issues. In this paper I consider the possibility of using PGD to select the sexual orientation of offspring. After considering ®ve potential objections, I conclude that parents should be permitted to use PGD to choose the sexual orientation of their children.
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1285Preconception Gender Selection: A Threat to the Natural Sex Ratio?Reproductive Biomedicine Online 10 (1): 116-118. 2005.This brief paper summarizes a series of postal investigations on the acceptance of selection for X or Y spermatozoa. These were conducted mainly in Germany but also in the UK, the Netherlands and the US. Selected families were approached with a series of questions about their wish to use sperm selection, and their choice of boys or girls. In general, large majorities opposed this approach for family balancing or sex selection on the basis of cost and inconvenience of the treatment. The view was …Read more
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263Evolution, Morality and the Law: On Valerie J. Grant’s Case Against Sex SelectionProceedings of the First International Conference on Bioethics in Human Reproduction Research in the Muslim World 21 (12): 3303-3304. 2006.
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Die Kunst, glücklich zu sein. Arthur Schopenhauer im Lichte der empirischen GlücksforschungSchopenhauer Jahrbuch 89 77-89. 2008.
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532Sex Selection: Sorting Sperm As a Gateway to the Sorting Society?In Janna Thompson (ed.), The Sorting Society: The Ethics of Genetic Screening and Therapy, Cambridge University Press. pp. 21-35. 2008.The Sorting Society: The Ethics of Genetic Screening and Therapy. Edited by Loane Skene & Janna Thompson, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008
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410Preconception Sex Selection for Non‐Medical Reasons: A Representative Survey from the UKHuman Reproduction 18 (10): 2231-2234. 2003.BACKGROUND: Preconception sex selection for non-medical reasons raises serious moral, legal and social issues. The main concern is based on the assumption that a freely available service for sex selection will distort the natural sex ratio and lead to a severe gender imbalance. However, for a severe gender imbalance to happen, at least two conditions have to be met. First, there must be a significant preference for children of a particular sex, and second, there must be a considerable demand for…Read more
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12Im Anfang war der EgoismusEcon. 1991.Den Ursprüngen menschlichen Verhaltens auf der Spur: eine allgemeinverständliche Darstellung der Soziobiologie und ihres Menschenbildes.
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Die Gene der Liebe: Vom ewigen Kampf der GeschlechterCarlsen. 1994.The Evolution of Human Sexuality
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369Sex Selection and Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis: A Response to the Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproductive MedicineHuman Reproduction 15 (9): 1879-1880. 2000.In its recent statement 'Sex Selection and Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis', the Ethics Committee of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine concluded that preimplantation genetic diagnosis for sex selection for non-medical reasons should be discouraged because it poses a risk of unwarranted gender bias, social harm, and results in the diversion of medical resources from genuine medical need. We critically examine the arguments presented against sex selection using preimplantation geneti…Read more
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337Attitudes Towards Preconception Sex Selection: A Representative Survey from GermanyReproductive Biomedicine Online 9 (6): 600-603. 2004.Within the next parliamentary term, the German government is expected to replace the current Embryo Protection Act with a new Human Reproductive Technology Act. Before introducing new legislation, policy makers may want to survey public attitudes towards novel applications of reproductive technology. In order to assess opinions and concerns about preconception sex selection for non-medical reasons, a social survey has been conducted in Germany. As a representative sample of the German population…Read more
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698Procreative Liberty: The Case for Preconception Sex SelectionReproductive Biomedicine Online 7 (4): 380-384. 2003.Preconception sex selection for non-medical reasons raises serious moral, legal and social issues. The main concerns include the threat of a sex ratio distortion due to a common preference for boys over girls, the charge of sexism, the danger of reinforcing gender stereotypical behaviour in sex selected children, and the fear of a slippery slope towards creating designer babies. This paper endeavours to show that none of the objections to preconception sex selection is conclusive and that there …Read more
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1Giving Death a Helping Hand: Physician-Assisted Suicide, Terminal Sedation and Public Policy (edited book)Springer. 2008.
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Gendercide? A Commentary on The Economist's Report About the Wordwide War on Baby GirlsJournal of Evolution and Technology 21 (2): 20-22. 2010.Preconception sex selection is one of the most controversial issues in bioethics today. There is a widespread fear that a technology that allows parents to choose the sex of their children will have disastrous social effects. In its article “Gendercide: The Worldwide War on Baby Girls,” The Economist claimed that the advent of preconception sex selection will lead to a socially disruptive imbalance of the sexes in Asian and Arab countries. While it is true that prenatal diagnosis and selective a…Read more
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4Physician-Assisted Suicide
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233Religion, Reproduction and Public PolicyReproductive Biomedicine Online 21 834-837. 2010.Many people look to religion to help resolve the serious moral and legal issues associated with assisted reproductive technologies. Doing so presupposes that religion is the cornerstone of ethics, but this assumption is not well founded. While various faiths are entitled to articulate their views on matters of human reproduction, the contradictions involved in doing so make it unwise to rely on religion in the formulation of law and policy. These contradictions – such as the indeterminacy about …Read more