Does birth matter?

Journal of Medical Ethics 48 (3):194-195 (2022)
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Abstract

This paper is a response to a recent paper by Bobier and Omelianchuk in which they argue that the critics of Giubilini and Minerva’s defence of infanticide fail to adequately justify a moral difference at birth. They argue that such arguments would lead to an intuitively less plausible position: that late-term abortions are permissible, thus creating a dilemma for those who seek to argue that birth matters. I argue that the only way to resolve this dilemma, is to bite the naturalist bullet and accept that the intuitively plausible idea that birth constitutes a morally relevant event is simply mistaken and biologically misinformed.

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Walter Veit
University of Reading

References found in this work

Biological normativity: a new hope for naturalism?Walter Veit - 2021 - Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 24 (2):291-301.
Procreative Beneficence and Genetic Enhancement.Walter Veit - 2018 - Kriterion - Journal of Philosophy 32 (1):75-92.
Neural Organoids and the Precautionary Principle.Jonathan Birch & Heather Browning - 2021 - American Journal of Bioethics 21 (1):56-58.
After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?Alberto Giubilini & Francesca Minerva - 2013 - Journal of Medical Ethics 39 (5):261-263.
No Room at the Zoo: Management Euthanasia and Animal Welfare.Heather Browning - 2018 - Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 31 (4):483-498.

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