This article examines the ethical validity of using viability as the cutoff point for abortion in the Netherlands, in view of potential changes to the Dutch perinatal care guideline. According to the Dutch Penal Code, abortion is permitted until viability: the point at which a fetus can survive outside the womb with technological assistance. Since the law was enacted in 1984, viability has been set at 24 weeks gestational age. Currently, in the Netherlands, the treatment limit for extreme prematurity is (...) also set at 24 weeks. The potential revision of the guideline could lower this threshold. Such a change could have implications for abortion in the Netherlands. We critically evaluate the use of viability within the Dutch context and offer recommendations for modifying the legal framework concerning abortion. We conclude that relying on any interpretation of viability is morally problematic for abortion regulation, as it is too indeterminate a concept to establish a threshold in a morally relevant way. (shrink)

Recent discussion on artificial womb technology (AWT) has given rise to a proliferation of terms to denote the subject of AWT. De Bie et al. opt for “fetal neonate” or “fetonate’ as “the best way t...

In 1839 and 1840, Newman preached four Oxford University Sermons, which critiqued the evidential apologetics advocated by John Locke (1632-1704) and William Paley (1743-1805) and subsequently restated by Richard Whately (1787-1863). In response, Newman drew upon Whately’s earlier works on logic and rhetoric to develop an alternative account of the reasonableness of religious belief that was based on implicit reasoning from antecedent probabilities. Newman’s argument was a creative response to Whately’s contention that evidential reasoning is the only safeguard against superstition (...) and infidelity. (shrink)

The present article uncovers a pervasive strand of Victorian critique of John Henry Newman’s religious apologetic. The exponents of this critique maintained that Newman defended a credulous adherence to Catholic doctrine on the basis of a sceptical approach to knowledge. The origins of this critical tradition are to be located in Tractarian Oxford, most notably in the disputes on religious epistemology between Newman and the Oriel Noetics, and the controversy over Newman’s Essay on Development. Later Victorian intellectuals continued this critical (...) interpretation of Newman’s apologetic. The present paper discusses its development among its most prominent religiously liberal and agnostic exponents, namely, James Anthony Froude, Charles Kingsley, James Fitzjames Stephen, his brother Leslie Stephen, and Thomas Henry Huxley. All of these critics were committed to epistemological standards that ultimately derived from John Locke and which they charged Newman with subverting. Accordingly, they regarded Newman’s apologetic as fundamentally dishonest. In addition, they argued that Newman’s sceptical rhetorical strategy was a major cause of the Victorian crisis of faith rather than a persuasive to belief. (shrink)