Switch to: References

Add citations

You must login to add citations.
  1. Public Reason, Bioethics, and Public Policy: A Seductive Delusion or Ambitious Aspiration?Leonard M. Fleck - forthcoming - Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics:1-15.
    Can Rawlsian public reason sufficiently justify public policies that regulate or restrain controversial medical and technological interventions in bioethics (and the broader social world), such as abortion, physician aid-in-dying, CRISPER-cas9 gene editing of embryos, surrogate mothers, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis of eight-cell embryos, and so on? The first part of this essay briefly explicates the central concepts that define Rawlsian political liberalism. The latter half of this essay then demonstrates how a commitment to Rawlsian public reason can ameliorate (not completely resolve) (...)
    Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Unintended Intrauterine Death and Preterm Delivery: What Does Philosophy Have to Offer?Nicholas Colgrove - 2023 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 48 (3):195-208.
    This special issue of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy focuses on unintended intrauterine death (UID) and preterm delivery (both phenomena that are commonly—and unhelpfully—referred to as “miscarriage,” “spontaneous abortion,” and “early pregnancy loss”). In this essay, I do two things. First, I outline contributors’ arguments. Most contributors directly respond to “inconsistency arguments,” which purport to show that abortion opponents are unjustified in their comparative treatment of abortion and UID. Contributors to this issue show that such arguments often rely on (...)
    Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
    		•
  • The Two tragedies argument.William Simkulet - 2019 - Journal of Medical Ethics 45 (5):304-308.
    Opposition to induced abortion rests on the belief that fetuses have a moral status comparable to beings like us, and that the loss of such a life is tragic. Antiabortion, or pro-life, theorists argue that it is wrong to induce abortion and it is wrong to allow others to perform induced abortion. However, evidence suggests that spontaneous abortion kills far more fetuses than induced abortion, and critics argue that most pro-life theorists neglect the threat of spontaneous abortion and ought to (...)
    Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  • Two Tragedies Argument: Two Mistakes.William Simkulet - 2019 - Journal of Medical Ethics 45 (8):562-564.
    Most opposition to abortion turns on the claim that human fetuses are full moral agents from conception. Critics argue that antiabortion theorists act hypocritically when they neglect spontaneous abortions—valuing some fetal lives and not others. Many philosophers draw a distinction between killing and letting die, with the former being morally impermissible and latter acceptable. Henrick Friberg-Fernros appeals to this distinction with his Two Tragedies Argument, contending that anti-abortion theorists are justified in prioritising preventing induced abortions over spontaneous ones, as the (...)
    Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • Three Problems with the Impairment Argument.William Simkulet - 2022 - Asian Bioethics Review 15 (2):169-179.
    In his recent article “Even if the fetus is not a person, abortion is immoral: The Impairment Argument,” Perry Hendricks sets out to sidestep thorny metaphysical questions regarding human fetuses and present a new argument against abortion – if impairing a fetus with fetal alcohol syndrome is immoral, then killing the fetus is immoral. Hendricks takes inspiration from Judith Jarvis Thomson’s defense of abortion – that even if fetuses are persons with a right to life, the right to life is (...)
    No categories
    Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
    		•
  • The Moral Significance of Abortion Inconsistency Arguments.William Simkulet - 2021 - Asian Bioethics Review 14 (1):41-56.
    Most opponents of abortion (OA) believe fetuses matter. Critics argue that OA act inconsistently with regards to fetal life, seeking to restrict access to induced abortion, but largely ignoring spontaneous abortion and the creation of surplus embryos by IVF. Nicholas Colgrove, Bruce Blackshaw, and Daniel Rodger call such arguments inconsistency arguments and contend they do not matter. They present three objections to these arguments — the other beliefs, other actions, and hypocrisy objection. Previously, I argued these objections fail and threaten (...)
    Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • The inconsistency argument: why apparent pro-life inconsistency undermines opposition to induced abortion.William Simkulet - 2022 - Journal of Medical Ethics 48 (7):461-465.
    Most opposition to induced abortion turns on the belief that human fetuses are persons from conception. On this view, the moral status of the fetus alone requires those in a position to provide aid—gestational mothers—to make tremendous sacrifices to benefit the fetus. Recently, critics have argued that this pro-life position requires more than opposition to induced abortion. Pro-life theorists are relatively silent on the issues of spontaneous abortion, surplus in vitro fertilisation human embryos, and the suffering and death of born (...)
    Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  • Cursed lamp: the problem of spontaneous abortion.William Simkulet - 2017 - Journal of Medical Ethics 43 (11):784-791.
    Many people believe human fetuses have the same moral status as adult human persons, that it is wrong to allow harm to befall things with this moral status, and thus voluntary, induced abortion is seriously morally wrong. Recently, many prochoice theorists have argued that this antiabortion stance is inconsistent; approximately 60% of human fetuses die from spontaneous abortion, far more than die from induced abortion, so if antiabortion theorists really believe that human fetuses have significant moral status, they have strong (...)
    Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   25 citations  
  • Abortion and Ectogenesis: Moral Compromise.William Simkulet - 2020 - Journal of Medical Ethics 46 (2):93-98.
    The contemporary philosophical literature on abortion primarily revolves around three seemingly intractable debates, concerning the (1) moral status of the fetus, (2) scope of women’s rights and (3) moral relevance of the killing/letting die distinction. The possibility of ectogenesis—technology that would allow a fetus to develop outside of a gestational mother’s womb—presents a unique opportunity for moral compromise. Here, I argue those opposed to abortion have aprima faciemoral obligation to pursue ectogenesis technology and provide ectogenesis for disconnected fetuses as part (...)
    Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   16 citations  
  • The scourge: Moral implications of natural embryo loss.Toby Ord - 2008 - American Journal of Bioethics 8 (7):12 – 19.
    It is often claimed that from the moment of conception embryos have the same moral status as adult humans. This claim plays a central role in many arguments against abortion, in vitro fertilization, and stem cell research. In what follows, I show that this claim leads directly to an unexpected and unwelcome conclusion: that natural embryo loss is one of the greatest problems of our time and that we must do almost everything in our power to prevent it. I examine (...)
    Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   51 citations  
  • Double-effect reasoning and the conception of human embryos.Timothy F. Murphy - 2013 - Journal of Medical Ethics 39 (8):529-532.
    Some commentators argue that conception signals the onset of human personhood and that moral responsibilities toward zygotic or embryonic persons begin at this point, not the least of which is to protect them from exposure to death. Critics of the conception threshold of personhood ask how it can be morally consistent to object to the embryo loss that occurs in fertility medicine and research but not object to the significant embryo loss that occurs through conception in vivo. Using that apparent (...)
    Direct download (6 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • Messing with mother nature: Fleck and the omega pill.James A. Montmarquet - 1982 - Philosophical Studies 41 (3):407 - 419.
    No categories
    Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
    		•
  • The Ethics of Embryonic Stem Cell Research.Katrien Devolder - 2015 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
    Embryonic stem cell research holds great promise for biomedical research, but involves the destruction of human embryos. Katrien Devolder explores the tension between the view that embryos should never be deliberately harmed, and the view that such research must go forward. She provides an in-depth analysis of major attempts to resolve the problem.
    $77.15 new   $80.00 from Amazon     View on Amazon.com
    Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations