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358Cutting to the Core: Exploring the Ethics of Contested SurgeriesRowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2006.When the benefits of surgery do not outweigh the harms or where they do not clearly do so, surgical interventions become morally contested. Cutting to the Core examines a number of such surgeries, including infant male circumcision and cutting the genitals of female children, the separation of conjoined twins, surgical sex assignment of intersex children and the surgical re-assignment of transsexuals, limb and face transplantation, cosmetic surgery, and placebo surgery
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5Book Review: Sue Eckstein, Manual for Research Ethics Committees (Centre of Medical Law and Ethics, King's College London) (review)Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 6 (4): 459-460. 2003.
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64Mitochondrial Replacement: Ethics and IdentityBioethics 29 (9): 631-638. 2015.Mitochondrial replacement techniques have the potential to allow prospective parents who are at risk of passing on debilitating or even life-threatening mitochondrial disorders to have healthy children to whom they are genetically related. Ethical concerns have however been raised about these techniques. This article focuses on one aspect of the ethical debate, the question of whether there is any moral difference between the two types of MRT proposed: Pronuclear Transfer and Maternal Spindle Tr…Read more
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74Should uterus transplants be publicly funded?Journal of Medical Ethics 42 (9): 559-565. 2016.Since 2000, 11 human uterine transplantation procedures (UTx) have been performed across Europe and Asia. Five of these have, to date, resulted in pregnancy and four live births have now been recorded. The most significant obstacles to the availability of UTx are presently scientific and technical, relating to the safety and efficacy of the procedure itself. However, if and when such obstacles are overcome, the most likely barriers to its availability will be social and financial in nature, rela…Read more
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26Before and beyond trust: reliance in medical AIJournal of Medical Ethics 48 (11): 852-856. 2021.Artificial intelligence is changing healthcare and the practice of medicine as data-driven science and machine-learning technologies, in particular, are contributing to a variety of medical and clinical tasks. Such advancements have also raised many questions, especially about public trust. As a response to these concerns there has been a concentrated effort from public bodies, policy-makers and technology companies leading the way in AI to address what is identified as a "public trust deficit".…Read more
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25Public funding, social change and uterus transplants: a response to commentariesJournal of Medical Ethics 42 (9): 572-573. 2016.
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26Separating conjoined twins: the case of Laden and Laleh BijaniIn Jennifer Gunning & Søren Holm (eds.), Ethics, Law, and Society, Ashgate. pp. 1--257. 2005.
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36Why I wrote…Choosing Tomorrow's Children: The Ethics of Selective ReproductionClinical Ethics 5 (1): 46-50. 2010.
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86Exploitation in International Paid Surrogacy ArrangementsJournal of Applied Philosophy 33 (2): 125-145. 2015.Many critics have suggested that international paid surrogacy is exploitative. Taking such concerns as its starting point, this article asks: how defensible is the claim that international paid surrogacy is exploitative and what could be done to make it less exploitative? In the light of the answer to, how strong is the case for prohibiting it? Exploitation could in principle be dealt with by improving surrogates' pay and conditions. However, doing so may exacerbate problems with consent. Foremo…Read more
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33Biomedical Research and the Commercial Exploitation of Human TissueGenomics, Society and Policy 1 (1): 1-14. 2005.There is widespread anxiety about the commercialisation and commodification of human tissue. The aims of this paper are: (a) to analyse some of these concerns, and (b) to see whether some of the main ethical arguments that lie behind them are sound. Part 1 looks at 'inducement arguments' against paying individuals for their tissue and concludes that these are generally quite weak. Part 2 examines some ethical objections to third parties (e.g. biotechnology companies and researchers) commercially…Read more
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17Using some “new” political ideas: Feminism and “green ideology”Res Publica 5 (1): 103-108. 1999.
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53Prenatal Screening, Reproductive Choice, and Public HealthBioethics 29 (1): 26-35. 2014.One widely held view of prenatal screening is that its foremost aim is, or should be, to enable reproductive choice; this is the Pure Choice view. The article critiques this position by comparing it with an alternative: Public Health Pluralism. It is argued that there are good reasons to prefer the latter, including the following. Public Health Pluralism does not, as is often supposed, render PNS more vulnerable to eugenics-objections. The Pure Choice view, if followed through to its logical con…Read more
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13Designer babies', instrumentalisation and the child's right to an open futureIn Nafsika Athanassoulis (ed.), Philosophical Reflections on Medical Ethics, Palgrave-macmillan. 2005.
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142"Eugenics talk" and the language of bioethicsJournal of Medical Ethics 34 (6): 467-471. 2008.In bioethical discussions of preimplantation genetic diagnosis and prenatal screening, accusations of eugenics are commonplace, as are counter-claims that talk of eugenics is misleading and unhelpful. This paper asks whether “eugenics talk”, in this context, is legitimate and useful or something to be avoided. It also looks at the extent to which this linguistic question can be answered without first answering relevant substantive moral questions. Its main conclusion is that the best and most no…Read more
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21Selective Reproduction, eugenics, and public healthIn Angus Dawson (ed.), Public Health Ethics: Key Concepts and Issues in Policy and Practice, Cambridge University Press. pp. 48-66. 2011.
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22Book review: Sue Eckstein, manual for research ethics committees (centre of medical law and ethics, King's college london) (review)Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 6 (4): 459-460. 2003.
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11Guest Editorial - A Complex Web of QuestionsCambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 22 (1): 4-7. 2013.
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39Review: Eugenics and the Criticism of Bioethics (review)Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 10 (4). 2007.This article provides a critical assessment of some aspects of Ann Kerr and Tom Shakespeare's Genetic Politics: from eugenics to genome. In particular, I evaluate their claims: (a) that bioethics is too ‘top down’, involving normative prescriptions, whereas it should instead be ‘bottom up’ and grounded in social science; and (b) that contemporary bioethics has not dealt particularly well with people's moral concerns about eugenics. I conclude that several of Kerr and Shakespeare's criticisms are…Read more
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50Do we need an alternative ‘relational approach’ to saviour siblings?Journal of Medical Ethics 41 (12): 927-928. 2015.
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181Bodies for Sale: Ethics and Exploitation in the Human Body TradeRoutledge. 2003._Bodies for Sale: Ethics and Exploitation in the Human Body Trade _explores the philosophical and practical issues raised by activities such as surrogacy and organ trafficking. Stephen Wilkinson asks what is it that makes some commercial uses of the body controversial, whether the arguments against commercial exploitation stand up, and whether legislation outlawing such practices is really justified. In Part One Wilkinson explains and analyses some of the notoriously slippery concepts used in th…Read more
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69Smokers' rights to health care: Why the 'restoration argument' is a moralising wolf in a liberal sheep's clothingJournal of Applied Philosophy 16 (3). 1999.Do people who cause themselves to be ill (e.g. by smoking) forfeit some of their rights to healthcare? This paper examines one argument for the view that they do, the restoration argument. It goes as follows. Smokers need more health‐resources than non‐smokers. Given limited budgets, we must choose between treating everyone equally (according to need) or reducing smokers' entitlements. If we choose the former, non‐smokers will be harmed by others' smoking, because there will be less resources av…Read more
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157Commodification Arguments for the Legal Prohibition of Organ SaleHealth Care Analysis 8 (2): 189-201. 2000.The commercial trading of human organs, along withvarious related activities (for example, advertising)was criminalised throughout Great Britain under theHuman Organ Transplants Act 1989.This paper critically assesses one type of argumentfor this, and similar, legal prohibitions:commodification arguments.Firstly, the term `commodification' is analysed. Thiscan be used to refer to either social practices or toattitudes. Commodification arguments rely on thesecond sense and are based on the idea t…Read more
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122Female Genital Mutilation and Cosmetic Surgery: Regulating Non‐Therapeutic Body ModificationBioethics 12 (4). 1998.In the UK, female genital mutilation is unlawful, not only when performed on minors, but also when performed on adult women. The aim of our paper is to examine several arguments which have been advanced in support of this ban and to assess whether they are sufficient to justify banning female genital mutilation for competent, consenting women. We proceed by comparing female genital mutilation, which is banned, with cosmetic surgery, towards which the law has taken a very permissive stance. We th…Read more
Areas of Specialization
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Areas of Interest
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |