Recent global advances in available technology to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission necessitate a rethinking of contemporary and previous ethical debates on HIV testing as a means to preventing vertical transmission. In this paper, we will provide an ethical analysis of HIV-testing strategies of pregnant women. First, we argue that provider-initiated opt-out HIV testing seems to be the most effective HIV test strategy. The flip-side of an opt-out strategy is that it may end up as involuntary testing in a clinical setting. (...) We analyse this ethical puzzle from a novel perspective, taking into account the moral importance of certain hypothetical preferences of the child, as well as the moral importance of certain actual preferences of the mother. Finally, we balance the conflicting concerns and try to arrive at an ethically sound solution to this dilemma. Our aim is to introduce a novel perspective from which to analyse testing strategies, and to explore the implications and possible benefits of our proposal. The conclusion from our analysis is that policies that recommend provider-initiated opt-out HIV testing of pregnant mothers, with a risk of becoming involuntary testing in a clinical setting, are acceptable. The rationale behind this is that the increased availability of very effective and inexpensive life-saving drugs makes the ethical problems raised by the possible intrusiveness of HIV testing less important than the child's hypothetical preferences to be born healthy. Health care providers, therefore, have a duty to offer both opt-out HIV testing and available PMTCT (preventing mother-to-child transmission) interventions. (shrink)

Recent health legislation in Norway significantly increases access to specialist care within a legally binding time frame. The paper describes the contents of the new legislation and introduces some of the challenges with proliferations of rights to health care. The paper describes some of the challenges associated with the proliferation of legal rights to health care. It explains the benefits of assessing the new law in the light of a rights framework. It then analyses the problematic aspects of establishing additional (...) priority rules as solutions to rights conflicts. It then defends adequacy criteria for acceptable priority rules when such rules are unavoidable. It finally defends our proposed method and explores concrete applications. (shrink)

This paper discusses parents’ rights and duties regarding their offspring from a certain classical liberal perspective. Approaching this issue from this perspective is particularly interesting for two reasons. First, classical liberalism’s alleged inability to explain the rights of very young human beings is a serious objection against such theories. Second, if we are able to show that a version of classical liberalism not only avoids this objection but actually implies very strong parental obligations to support offspring, the case for extensive (...) parental obligations in general is indeed very strong. If we accept that parents produce offspring in the same sense that they can produce inanimate objects, but are able to show that such production does not create parental ownership in offspring, we should accept that parents have extensive duties to support their offspring in virtue of being their offspring’s producers. Moreover, these duties are negative duties, which parents must perform in order to avoid actively harming their offspring. (shrink)

In this paper, a rights-based argument for the impermissibility of abortion, infanticide and neglect of some pre-natal organisms and infants/children is advanced. I argue, in opposition to most rights-ethicists, that the potentiality for autonomous agency gives individuals negative rights. I also examine the conjecture that potential autonomous agents have positive rights in virtue of their vulnerability. According to this suggestion, once an individual obtains actual autonomous agency, he or she has merely negative rights. Possible solutions to conflicts of rights between (...) parents and their offspring are investigated. Finally, I discuss a lexical order between positive and negative rights, which may solve conflicts between the rights of potential autonomous agents and actual autonomous agents. (shrink)

In this paper, a rights-based argument for the impermissibility of abortion, infanticide and neglect of some pre-natal organisms and infants/children is advanced. I argue, in opposition to most rights-ethicists, that the potentiality for autonomous agency gives individuals negative rights. I also examine the conjecture that potential autonomous agents have positive rights in virtue of their vulnerability. According to this suggestion, once an individual obtains actual autonomous agency, he or she has merely negative rights. Possible solutions to conflicts of rights between (...) parents and their offspring are investigated. Finally, I discuss a lexical order between positive and negative rights, which may solve conflicts between the rights of potential autonomous agents and actual autonomous agents. (shrink)