Online research in philosophy

The concept of minimal risk plays a key role in federal regulations on the protection of human research subjects. Although there has been considerable discussion of the meaning of minimal risk, the question of how this concept should be interpreted in research involving pregnant women and fetuses has not been addressed. This essay reviews the literature on minimal risk and argues for an interpretation of that concept in the context of research involving pregnant women and fetuses.

Public policy decisions concerning embryos and fetuses tend to lack reasoned argument on their moral status. While agreement on personhood is elusive, this concept has unquestioned moral relevance. A stipulated usage of the term, the psychic sense of ‘person’, applies to early human prenatal life and encompasses morally relevant aspects of personhood. A ‘person’ in the psychic sense has (1) a minimal psychology, defined as the capacity to retain experiences, which may be nonconscious, through physiological analogs of memory; and (2) (...) the potential to become a person in the full sense. Psychic personhood merits attribution of moral personhood because (1) the experience of a ‘person’ in the psychic sense has continuity with the experience of a full person; and (2) this experience begins to determine the development of the personal psychological characteristics of that individual. Psychic personhood is a rationally defensible boundary for invasive research involving human embryos and fetuses. Lacking precise empirical knowledge, policy makers could attribute psychic personhood at the time of earliest brainstem activity, that is, during the seventh week of fetal development. Keywords: personhood, fetal moral status, fetal psychology, potential person, human experimentation CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

The production of a number of vaccines involves the use of cell-lines originally derived from fetuses directly aborted in the 1960s and 1970s. Such cell-lines, indeed sometimes the very same ones, are important to on-going research, including at Catholic institutions. The cells currently used are removed by a number of decades and by a significant number of cellular generations from the original cells. Moreover, the original cells extracted from the bodies of the aborted fetuses were transformed to produce the cell (...) lines, since otherwise they would be incapable of the kind of culturing that is required. (shrink)

          The production of a number of vaccines involves the use of cell-lines originally derived from fetuses directly aborted in the 1960s and 1970s. Such cell-lines, indeed sometimes the very same ones, are important to on-going research, including at Catholic institutions. The cells currently used are removed by a number of decades and by a significant number of cellular generations from the original cells. Moreover, the original cells extracted from the bodies (...) of the aborted fetuses were transformed to produce the cell lines, since otherwise they would be incapable of the kind of culturing that is required.           It is generally acknowledged by ethicists, including many Catholic ones generally considered to be orthodox, and by the U.S. bishops, that the use of the cell-lines in connection with the production of vaccines is morally permissible. It does not appear that there is a relevant qualitative difference between the use of the cell-lines in vaccines and in research. One might argue that there is certainty of benefit from a vaccine while the benefits of research are uncertain. However, in any given case of the administration of a vaccine to an individual, it is far from certain that such administration will be of benefit to that individual. After all, the individual might never come in contact with someone infected with the disease in question, particularly if the disease is now uncommon in the individual’s locale. Yet, it is morally certain that some of the administrations of the vaccine will be beneficial. This is parallel to the fact that while any one research project might not be beneficial, the history of biomedical research makes it extremely probable, indeed morally certain, that some project involving the use of such cell-lines will be beneficial. There may, of course, be quantitative difference between the cases—the probabilities and benefits may not be equal—but the difference does not seem to be a qualitative one. Therefore, if one accepts the use of the cell-lines in vaccines, one should accept the use in research in at least some conceivable and perhaps actual circumstances.           The main argument I am interested in in favor of the use of the cell-lines proceeds by first granting that the initial abortion and extraction of cells from the deceased fetus was morally gravely illicit. However, the connection between the currently used derived cells and the abortion and original derivation is sufficiently remote that the use becomes licit. Not all fruit of a poisoned tree is poisoned: it can be morally.... (shrink)

Olson (1997a) tries to refute the Psychological Approach to personal identity with his Fetus Argument, and Mackie (1999) aims to do the same with the Death Argument. With the help of a suggestion made by Baker (1999), the following discussion shows that these arguments fail. In the process of defending the Psychological Approach, it is made clear exactly what one is and is not committed to as a proponent of the theory.

Part One addresses the question whether the fact that some persons love something, worship it, or deeply care about it, can endow moral status on that thing. I argue that the answer is “no.” While some cases lend great plausibility to the view that love or worship can endow moral status, there are other cases in which love or worship clearly fails to endow moral status. Furthermore, there is no principled way to distinguish these two types of cases, so we (...) must conclude that love or worship never endow moral status. Part Two takes up the hard question of why we have to be careful of things that others love or worship, given that the things do not thereby have moral status. I argue that it is sometimes bad for those who love or worship the things if we mistreat them. I develop an account of when love and worship, and person projects more generally, succeed in expanding the scope of what counts as good or bad for the person engaged in the project. (shrink)

Don Marquis has put forward a non-religious argument against abortion based on what he claims is a morally relevant similarity between killing adult human beings and killing fetuses. He asserts that killing adults is wrong because it deprives them of their valuable futures. He points out that a fetus’s future includes everything that is in an adult’s future, given that fetuses naturally develop into adults. Thus, according to Marquis, killing a fetus deprives it of the same sort of valuable future (...) that an adult is deprived of in being killed and this makes abortion seriously wrong. Commentators have raised a number of objections to Marquis’s argument, to which he has satisfactorily responded. In this paper, difficulties with Marquis’s argument that have not been considered by previous commentators are pointed out. A main thesis of this paper is that Marquis does not adequately defend his argument against several important objections that he himself has raised. These new considerations support the view that Marquis’s argument is unsuccessful. (shrink)

It is sometimes suggested that if a moral theory implies that infanticide can sometimes be permissible, that is sufficient to discredit the theory. I argue in this article that the common-sense belief that infanticide is wrong, and perhaps even worse than the killing of an adult, is challenged not so much by theoretical considerations as by common-sense beliefs about abortion, the killing of non-human animals, and so on. Because there are no intrinsic differences between premature infants and viable fetuses, it (...) is difficult to accept that an abortion performed after the point of viability can be permissible while denying that infanticide can be permissible for a comparably important reason. This and other challenges to the consistency of our intuitions exert pressure on us either to accept the occasional permissibility of infanticide or to reject liberal beliefs about abortion. (shrink)

Better Never to Have Been argues for a number of related, highly provocative, views: (1) Coming into existence is always a serious harm. (2) It is always wrong to have children. (3) It is wrong not to abort fetuses at the earlier stages of gestation. (4) It would be better if, as a result of there being no new people, humanity became extinct. These views may sound unbelievable--but anyone who reads Benatar will be obliged to take them seriously.

: Embryonic stem cells, which have the potential to save many lives, must be recovered from aborted fetuses or live embryos. Although tissue from aborted fetuses can be used without moral complicity in the underlying abortion, obtaining stem cells from embryos necessarily kills them, thus raising difficult questions about the use of embryonic human material to save others. This article draws on previous controversies over embryo research and distinctions between intrinsic and symbolic moral status to analyze these issues. It argues (...) that stem cell research with spare embryos produced during infertility treatment, or even embryos created specifically for research or therapeutic purposes, is ethically acceptable and should receive federal funding. (shrink)

In Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice (Cambridge University Press, 2007) Francis Beckwith argues that fetuses are such that, from conception, they are prima facie wrong to kill. He thinks abortion is almost never permissible beyond rare cases where, unless the fetus is killed, both the pregnant woman and the fetus will die. He defends his view not from religiously-justified premises but by appealing to “a particular metaphysics of the human person” that he calls “The Substance (...) View.” I will argue that such metaphysics is irrelevant to the morality of abortion. Beckwith’s metaphysics thereby neither supports, nor detracts from, his abortion ethic. Moral, not metaphysical, assumptions drive the argument, and Beckwith inadequately defends these assumptions. Indeed, they are often false, and his main argument is unsound. (130 words). (shrink)

It seems that if abortion is permissible, then stem cell research must be as well: it involves the death of a less significant thing (an embryo rather than a fetus) for a greater good (lives saved rather than nine months of physical imposition avoided). However, I argue in this essay that this natural thought is mistaken. In particular, on the assumption that embryos and fetuses have the full moral status of persons, abortion is permissible but one form of stem cell (...) research is notFthe practice of creating embryos and then destroying them to extract cell.. (shrink)

: A threat to women is obscured when we treat "abortion-as-evacuation" as equivalent to "abortion-as-killing." This holds only if evacuating a fetus kills it. As technology advances, the equivalence will fail. Any feminist account of abortion that relies on the equivalence leaves moral room for women to be required to give up their fetuses to others when it fails. So an account of the justification of abortion-as-killing is needed that does not depend on the equivalence.

          I am going to give an argument showing that abortion is wrong in exactly the same circumstances in which it is wrong to kill an adult. To argue further that abortion is always wrong would require showing that it is always wrong to kill an adult or that the circumstances in which it is not wrong--say, capital punishment--never befall a fetus. Such an argument will be beyond the scope of this (...) paper, but since it is uncontroversial that it is wrong to kill an adult human being for the sorts of reasons for which most abortions are performed, it follows that most abortions are wrong.           The argument has three parts, of decreasing difficulty. The most difficult will be the first part where I will argue that I was once a fetus and before that I was an embryo. This argument will rest on simple considerations of the metaphysics of identity. The next part of the argument will be to show that it would have been at least as wrong to have killed me before I was born as it would be to kill me now. I will argue for this in more than one way, but the guiding intuition is clear: if you kill me earlier, the victim is the same but the harm is greater since I am deprived of more the earlier I die. Finally, the easiest part of the argument will be that I am not relevantly different from anybody else and the fetus which I was was not relevantly different from any other human fetus, and so the argument applies equally well to all fetuses.           The advantage of this argument over others is that it avoids talking of personhood, except in one of the independent arguments in part 2. (shrink)

In ‘An Almost Absolute Value in History’ John T. Noonan criticizes several attempts to provide a criterion for when an entity deserves rights. These criteria, he argues are either arbitrary or lead to absurd consequence. Noonan proposes human conception as the criterion of rights, and justifies it by appeal to the sharp shift in probability, at conception, of becoming a being possessed of human reason. Conception, then, is when abortion becomes immoral.The article has an historical and a philosophical goal. The (...) historical goal is to carefully present the probability argument in a charitable manner. The philosophical goal is to offer a unique criticism of Noonan's probability argument against abortion. I argue that, even on a very charitable reading of Noonan's argument for the conception criterion, this criterion is also susceptible to charges of arbitrariness and absurdity. Noonan's claim that probability shifts have anything to do with the moral rights of fetuses cannot be made coherent. I also show that there are problems with Noonan's assumptions about moral rights and the potential to become a being possessed of human reason. (shrink)

In a previous paper, I had argued that Strong’s counterexamples to Marquis’s argument against abortion—according to which terminating fetuses is wrong because it deprives them of a valuable future—fail either because they have no bearing on Marquis’s argument or because they make unacceptable claims about what constitutes a valuable future. In this paper I respond to Strong’s criticism of my argument according to which I fail to acknowledge that Marquis uses "future like ours" and "valuable future" interchangeably. I show that (...) my argument does not rely on not acknowledging that "future like ours" and "valuable future" are interchangeable; and that, rather, it is exactly by replacing "future like ours" with "valuable future" that I construct my argument against Strong. I conclude with some remarks on how Marquis’s concept of "future like ours" should be interpreted. (shrink)

Some people contend that fetuses have moral status but less than that of paradigm persons. Many people hold views implying that sentient animals have moral status but less than that of persons. These positions suggest that moral status admits of degrees. Does it? To address this question, we must first clarify what it means to speak of degrees of moral status. The paper begins by clarifying the more basic concept of moral status and presenting two models of degrees ofmoral status. (...) It then sketches several significant considerations in favor of, and several against, the assertion of degrees of moral status. The paper concludes by drawing lessons from the discussion. (shrink)

Theories of equal human rights have experienced an exponential growth during the past thirty or forty years. From declarations of human rights, such as the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to arguments about the rights of fetuses versus the rights of women, to claims and counter claims about the rights of minorities to preferential hiring, the rights of animals to life and well-being, and the rights of trees to be preserved, the proliferation of rights affects every phase of (...) our socio-political discourse. Hardly a month goes by without a new book appearing on the subject. (shrink)

Real Rights offers a new theory of the grounds of legal and moral rights, thereby providing a platform from which to determine whether alleged rights are "real" or not. In particular, Wellman conceives of a legal or moral right as a complex of liberties, claims, powers, and immunities, and distinguishes the kinds of laws and moral reasons that can ground each of these. The book argues that only agents can be right-holders, that children and the mentally-limited can have only limited (...) rights, while fetuses, the dead, and groups can have none. It also discusses the duties implied by any real right, as well as the kinds of considerations (including conflicting rights) that could override implied duties. This original and systematic discussion of the grounds of rights should interest a wide range of scholars and practitioners in philosophy, law, and political science. (shrink)

This paper argues that, if we are committed to a Pro-choice stance with regard to selective abortion for disability, we will be unable to justify the prohibition of sex-selective abortion (SSA), for two reasons. First, familiar Pro-choice arguments in favour of a woman’s right to select against fetal impairment also support, by parity of reasoning, a right to choose SSA. Second, rejection of the criticisms of selective abortion for disability levelled by disability theorists also disposes, by implication, of the key (...) objections to SSA, as developed, most notably, by feminists. The paper, then, consists of a conditional defence of SSA, under which SSA should be available, and protected by a right, if selective abortion for disability is. Opponents of SSA might respond by conceding additional restrictions on selection against disabled fetuses. It should become clear throughout the paper, however, that any such new restrictions would be unacceptably onerous for women. (shrink)

In Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice (2007) and an earlier article in this journal, "Defending Abortion Philosophically"(2006), Francis Beckwith argues that fetuses are, from conception, prima facie wrong to kill. His arguments are based on what he calls a "metaphysics of the human person" known as "The Substance View." I argue that Beckwith’s metaphysics does not support his abortion ethic: Moral, not metaphysical, claims that are part of this Substance View are the foundation of the (...) argument, and Beckwith inadequately defends these moral claims. Thus, Beckwith’s arguments do not provide strong support for what he calls the "pro-life" view of abortion. (shrink)

Suppose there are two people having a moral disagreement about, say, abortion. They argue in a familiar way about whether fetuses have rights, whether a woman’s right to autonomy over her body overrides the fetus’s welfare, and so on. But then suppose one of the people says “Oh, it’s all just a matter of opinion; there’s no objective fact about whether fetuses have rights. When we say that something is morally forbidden, all we’re really doing is expressing our disapproval of (...) it.” The other person protests: “No!—that’s totally wrong. Of course there are objective moral truths.” And suppose their dispute now settles on this new matter of whether there are objective moral facts, and the debate continues. They’ve now stopped discussing abortion, and are discussing the nature of any moral debate about abortion; they’ve stopped doing ethics, and started doing metaethics. If wondering about what one morally ought to do is to engage in ethical thought, then wondering about what one is doing when one wonders about what one morally ought to do is to engage in metaethical thought. When we make public moral judgments are we stating facts, or are we just expressing our opinions? And if there are moral facts, then what kind of fact are they? Can moral judgments be true or false? Can moral judgments be justified, and if so how? These kinds of questions are the domain of metaethics. (I’m not saying that there is a crisp and principled line to be drawn between meta-ethics and regular ethical discourse; but it is, if nothing else, a pedagogically useful division of labor.). (shrink)

I argue that people who believe fetuses have the same moral right to life as the rest of us have sufficient reasons to refuse to classify abortion as legal murder and to refuse to punish abortion as severely as legal murder.

According to the theory of intrinsic value and moral standing called the ‘substance view,’ what makes it prima facie seriously wrong to kill adult human beings, human infants, and even human fetuses is the possession of the essential property of the basic capacity for rational moral agency – a capacity for rational moral agency in root form and thereby not remotely exercisable. In this critique, I cover three distinct reductio charges directed at the substance view's conclusion that human fetuses have (...) the same intrinsic value and moral standing as adult human beings. After giving consideration to defenders of the substance view's replies to these charges, I then critique each of them, ultimately concluding that none is successful. Of course, in order to understand all of these things – the reductio charges, defenders of the substance view's replies to them, and my criticisms of their replies – one must have a better understanding of the substance view (in particular, its understanding of rational moral agency) as well as its defense. Accordingly, I address the substance view's understanding of rational moral agency as well as present its defense. (shrink)

Some people are opposed to abortion in general because they loved their children when these were fetuses. While this may be a psychological explanation of why these people believe thus, and perhaps an argument for these people not to abort the children they love, it does not at first sight seem to be an argument for the..

It is argued that the question of whether or not one is required to be or become a strict vegetarian depends, not upon a rule or ideal that endorses vegetarianism on moral grounds, but rather upon whether one's own physical, biological nature is adapted to maintaining health and well-being on a vegetarian diet. Even if we accept the view that animals have rights, we still have no duty to make ourselves substantially worse off for the sake of other rights-holders. Moreover, (...) duties to others, such as fetuses and infants, may require one to consume meat or animal products. Seven classes of individuals who are not required to be or become vegetarians are identified and their examption is related to nutritional facts; these classes comprise most of the earth's population. The rule of vegetarianism defines a special or provisional duty rather than any general or universal rule, since its observance it based upon the biological capacities of individual humans whose genetic constitution and environment makes them suitably herbivorous. It is also argued that generalizing the vegetarian ideal as a social goal for all would be wrongful because it fails to consider the individual nutritional needs of humans at various stages of life, according to biological differences between the sexes, and because it would have the eugenic effect of limiting the adaptability of the human species. The appeal to the natural interests of omnivores will not justify any claim that humans may eat amounts of meat or animal products in excess of a reasonable safety margin since animals have rights-claims against us. (shrink)

: Those who are morally opposed to abortion generally make several pivotal assumptions. This paper focuses on the assumption that we have full moral status throughout our existence. Coupled with the assumption that we come into existence at conception, the assumption about moral status entails that all human fetuses have full moral status, including a right to life. Is the assumption about moral status correct? In addressing this question, I respond to several arguments advanced, in this journal and other venues, (...) by Alfonso Gómez-Lobo. Gómez-Lobo's reasoning resolves into two basic arguments: (1) an appeal to the practical necessity of early moral protection and (2) an appeal to our kind membership and potentiality. I respond to these in turn before offering further reflections. (shrink)

: I argue that there is an important analogy between sex selection and selective abortion of fetuses diagnosed with Down syndrome. There are surprising parallels between the social construction of Down syndrome as a disability and the deeply entrenched institutionalization of sexual difference in many societies. Prevailing concepts of gender and mental retardation exert a powerful influence in constructing the sexual identities and life plans of people with Down syndrome, and also affect their families' lives.

This essay examines the arguments for and against working towards the objective of human germ line engineering for medical purposes. Germ line changes which result as a secondary consequence of other well designed and ethically acceptable manipulations of somatic cells to cure an otherwise fatal disease can be seen as acceptable. More serious objections apply to intentional germ line interventions because of the unacceptability of using a person solely as a vehicle for creating uncertain genetic change in his descendants. It (...) is also morally unacceptable to use the promise of future benefit to experiment on fetuses or embryos when other more effective technologies exist to help parents have healthy children. Using new genetic technologies to select desirable genotypes among gametes is less problematic and affords a promising new technique for avoiding intergenerational harms. Keywords: embryo research, germ line manipulation, intergenerational ethics, secondary germ line effects CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

All persons, while different from one another, have the same value: this is the author's relatively uncontroversial starting point. Her end point is not uncontroversial: an ideal of justice as human flourishing, based on each person's unique set of capabilities. Because the book's focus is women's health care, gender justice, a necessary component of justice, is central to examination of the issues. Classical pragmatists and feminist standpoint theorists are enlisted in support of a strategy by which gender justice is promoted. (...) Two features of the book are unique: (1) the topics presented cover the entire life span of women, not just those related to reproduction; (2) a range views about moral status are applied not only to fetuses but also to individuals already born. Attention to these features is intended to facilitate ethical consistency or moral integrity and respect for those who hold different moral views. While delineating and defending the book's perspective, the first section provides an overview of bioethics, critiques prevalent approaches to bioethics and models of the physician-patient relationship, and sketches distinguishing aspects of women's health care that are prevalently neglected. Positions about moral status are also presented. The second section identifies topics that are indirectly as well as directly related to women's health, such as domestic violence and caregiving. Brief cases illustrate variables relevant to each topic. Empirical and theoretical considerations follow each set of cases; these are intended to precipitate more expansive and critical examination of the issues raised. The last section is devoted to an egalitarian ideal that may be pursued through an ethic of virtue or supererogation rather than obligation. By embracing this ideal, according to the author, moral agents support a more demanding level of morality than guidelines or laws require. (shrink)

Au cours des années 1970 (qui furent, dans plusieurs pays, celles de la libéralisation de Vavortement), la question du statut de Vembryon humain fut surtout débattue en termes de libertés individuelles : droit des femmes à disposer d'elles-mêmes, vs. ‘droit à la vie' du fœtus caché dans le corps de sa mère. Dans les années 1980, avec l'application des techniques de procréation ‘artificielle' au traitement de la stérilité humaine, l'accent est mis sur une responsabilité collective à l'égard de l'embryon séparé, (...) conçu en éprouvette, mis au congélateur, convoité par la recherche lorsqu'il n'est pas rendu à un utérus maternel. « Il est urgent de déterminer le degré de sa protection juridique », dit l'Assemblée parlementaire du Conseil de l'Europe (Recommandation 1046, 1986). Mais il n'existe pas de consensus sur les fondements philosophiques d'une telle protection. Le but du présent article n'est pas d'ajouter une thèse de plus à une littérature internationale déjà considérable, mais de situer les positions et arguments en présence, pour éclairer un débat qui touche, entre autres, aux sources du respect dû à la personne humaine. The European Parliament has recently expressed the view that human embryos and fetuses are endowed with human dignity, and that a definition of the degree to which they should be protected by law is urgently needed (Recommendation 1046, 1986). There is however no consensus on the philosophical grounds for such a protection, or on the degree to which embryos and fetuses should be treated as persons. This paper contrasts the biological (natural) and ethical (cultural) criteria of person hood and their underlying ontologies, examines the arguments in favor of taking a pragmatic line rather trying to decide when human beings become persons, and suggests that the pragmatic attitude in fact implies a developmental ontology. (shrink)

Is a woman ever morally obligated to forgo an abortion for the sake of the man who has impregnated her? In “Fathers and Fetuses,” George Harris contends that in some situations women are so obligated. Harris argues that a woman who lies to her partner about her desire to have children, becomes pregnant, and then decides to abort, will, if she acts on this decision, violate her partner’s autonomy and harm him in so far as she will harm his fetus. (...) To avoid these wrongs, a woman must therefore carry this fetus to term. I argue that this conclusion depends on a principle for which Harris offers no argument, namely that the conditions under which a fetus is to be considered a man’s are the same conditions under which a fetus is to be considered a woman’s. Evaluating this principle andconsidering related cases leads to important conclusions about a parent’s relationship with the fetus. Specifically, I challenge the notion that we should ever consider a fetus ‘his’ or even ‘hers.’. (shrink)

This article explores the plausibility of an argument against embryonic stem cell research based on what the regulations already say about research on pregnant women and fetuses. The center of the argument is the notion of vulnerability and whether such a concept is applicable to human embryos. It is argued that such an argument can be made plausible. The article concludes by responding to several important objections.

Environmentalists do not appear to walk their walk as consistently as animal liberationists and anti-abortionists. Are we therefore more hypocritical? Maybe; but there's another explanation. Unlike concern for individual animals or individual fetuses, environmental concerns are holistic (systemic)—air and waterpollution, species <span class='Hi'>extinction</span>, diminished ecological health and integrity. One pro-life pregnant woman may preserve the life of one unborn baby, the one in her uterus; and one animal liberationist can save the life of one animal, the one he didn't eat. (...) But one environmentalist who refuses to own and operate an automobile has no measurable effect on air pollution. Only collective, social change—universal banning of automobiles, mandatory recycling, etc.—will effectively redress environmental insults. Thus, the best way to put environmental ethics into practice is not to try to do one's bit—retire one's own car, recycle one's own waste—and leave it to every other person to do his or her bit and hope that all such individual environmental ethical acts will aggregate into significance. The best way to put environmental ethics into practice is to work to instill environmental values in society as the foundation for coercive environmental policies, regulations, and laws. The mechanistic-materialistic worldview and its associated consumerist value system trickled down into the collective consciousness via its technological manifestation in a plethora of machines. The systemic worldview in which environmental values are embedded may be communicated to the general public less by means of discursive discourse than by a new generation of systemic-electronic technologies. (shrink)

Feticide, the practice of terminating the life of an otherwise viable fetus in utero, has become an increasingly common practice in obstetric centres around the globe, a concomitant of antenatal screening technologies. This paper examines this expanding practice in light of the concept of human dignity. Although it is assumed from the outset that even viable human fetuses are not persons and as such do not enjoy full membership in the moral community, it is argued that the fact that these (...) are nevertheless human fetuses affords them prima facie moral status. Thus even those who accept a liberal position with regard to therapeutic abortion, should be concerned about these more recent developments. Indeed, how we treat viable human fetuses has implications for our prospective treatment of other human non-persons and could undermine the common human dignity we all share. (shrink)

Suppose we accept prenatal diagnosis and the selective abortion of fetuses that test positive for severe genetic disorders to be both morally and socially acceptable. Should we consider prenatal diagnosis and selective abortion (or other genetic interventions such as preimplantation diagnosis, genetic therapy, cloning, etc.) for nontherapeutic purposes to be acceptable as well? On the one hand, the social aims to promote liberty in general, and reproductive liberty in particular, provide reason for thinking that individuals should be free to make (...) their own decisions about whether or not to employ whatever genetic services might be developed and offered by private enterprise. On the other hand, interventions aimed at enhancement would (in many cases) presumably only be available to those who are financially fortunate. A worry is that unequal access to enhancements that provide competitive advantages to offspring will further and more permanently increase existing unjust disparities between the haves and have-nots. The aim to promote liberty might thus conflict with the social aim of equality. An additional worry is that the development and provision of nontherapeutic genetic interventions would drain limited medical resources away from therapeutic purposes which would ultimately be more fruitful. The promotion of liberty might also thus conflict with the aim to promote aggregate utility. Assuming there is no reason to think that the promotion of liberty should be given absolute priority over both equality and aggregate utility, we need to think more about how to make trade-offs between these three legitimate social aims. (shrink)

In a widely acclaimed study from 2002, researchers found a case of gene-environment interaction for a gene controlling neuroenzymatic activity (low vs. high), exposure to childhood maltreatment, and antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). Cases of gene-environment interaction are generally characterized as evincing a genetic predisposition; for example, individuals with low neuroenzymatic activity are generally characterized as having a genetic predisposition to ASPD. I first argue that the concept of a genetic predisposition fundamentally misconstrues these cases of gene-environment interaction. This misconstrual will (...) be diagnosed, and then a new concept—interactive predisposition—will be introduced. I then show how this conceptual shift reconfigures old questions and raises new questions for genetic screening. Attempts to screen embryos or fetuses for the gene associated with low neuroenzymatic activity with an eye towards selecting against the low-activity variant fall prey to the myth of pre-environmental prediction; attempts to screen newborns for the gene associated with low neuroenzymatic activity with an eye towards early intervention will have to face the interventionist’s dilemma. (shrink)

I attempt to show that, under materialist assumptions about the nature of mind, it is a necessary condition for fetal personhood that electrical activity has begun in the brain. First, I argue that it is a necessary condition for a thing to be a moral person that it is (or has) a self—understood as something that is capable of serving as the subject of a mental experience. Second, I argue that it is a necessary condition for a fetus to be (...) (or have) a self that some form of electrical brain activity occurs. Third, I argue that since the beginning of brain activity typically occurs at around 10 weeks of gestational age, most fetuses are not persons during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy and hence that abortion of most fetuses during this period does not rise to the moral level of murder. (shrink)

Despite its prominence in the abortion debate and in public policy, the discourse of 'unborn patient' has not been subjected to critical scrutiny. We provide a critical analysis in three steps. First, we distinguish between the descriptive and normative meanings of 'unborn child.' There is a long history of the descriptive use of 'unborn child.' Second, we argue that the concept of an unborn child has normative content but that this content does not do the work that opponents of (...) abortion want it to do, namely, to establish the independent moral status of fetuses and their rights, the right to life in particular. Third, we argue that the normative content of 'unborn child' should be dependent moral status, not independent moral status. We conclude that the ethical concept of the fetus as a patient should replace the discourse of “unborn child” when that phrase is used normatively. (shrink)

This article focuses on maternal-fetal surgery (MFS) and on the concept of clinical equipoise that is a widely accepted requirement for conducting randomized controlled trials (RCT). There are at least three reasons why equipoise is unsuitable for MFS. First, the concept is based on a misconception about the nature of clinical research and the status of research subjects. Second, given that it is not clear who the research subject/s in MFS is/are, if clinical equipoise is to be used as a (...) criterion to test the ethical appropriateness of RCT, its meaning should be unambiguous. Third, because of the multidisciplinary character of MFS, it is not clear who should be in equipoise. As a result, we lack an adequate criterion for the ethical review of MFS protocols. In our account, which is based on Chervenak and McCullough's seminal work in the field of obstetric ethics, equipoise is abandoned. and RCT involving MFS can be ethically initiated when a multidisciplinary ethics review board (ERB), having an evidence-based assessment of the risks involved, is convinced that the value of answering the research hypothesis, for the sake of the health interests of future pregnant women carrying fetuses with certain congenital birth defects, justifies the actual risks research participants might suffer within a set limit of low/manageable. (shrink)

A critical application of Ruddick's model of maternal thinking is the best way to grapple with the ethical dilemmas posed by sex-selective abortion which I view as a "moral mistake." Chief among these is the need to be sensitive to local cultural practices in countries where sex-selective abortion is prevalent, while simultaneously developing consistent international standards to deal with the dangers posed by the use of sex-selective abortion to eliminate female fetuses.

The purpose of this commentary on James Nelson's article [1] is to advocate introducing the ethics of care into the arena of gestational conflict. Too often the debate gets stalled in a maternal versus fetal rights headlock. Interventionists stress fetal over maternal rights: they believe education, post-birth prosecution or pre-birth seizure of pregnant women may be permissible. In contrast to interventionists, other philosophers stress that favoring fetal rights treats women like fetal containers. I question whether we should really consider issues (...) of moral/parental obligations to children in terms of rights. Rather, the language of care should guide moral conduct vis-a-vis children/fetuses. The particularity of each woman's story — the particulars of her human relationships — inform her story. An individual's ability to care is largely a function of whether community cares for her. We must care for others to enable them to care for themselves and their loved ones — born or unborn. (shrink)

The recent Supreme Court decision upholding Roe v. Wade and in particular, the dissent by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, sheds new light on the issue of abortion. Let us consider any stage of a pregnancy when abortion is medically safe for the mother. If at that stage it is also medically viable to save the fetus, is an abortion performed at that stage of pregnancy morally justifiable? For example, if it is, or becomes, medically safe to perform abortions after first (...) trimester of pregnancy and at the same time saving a fetus is, or becomes, medically viable or not unusual during some stage of the second trimester, can abortions during and after that stage of pregnancy be justified? With a number of qualifications I shall argue the thesis that as a general rule, but not an absolute rule, abortion in these instances is not usually justifiable. For if it is, then one will also have to grant the moral justification for a number of other highly questionable medical practices. This thesis is not to be identified with the stronger claim that abortions of viable fetuses can never be performed. There are surely exceptions such as when the life or health of the mother is in danger. But, I shall argue, the justification for making such exceptions is on different grounds than is sometimes claimed because one must weigh the health of the mother against the life of another human being. (shrink)

During the last decade neurotransplantation has developed into a technique with the possible potential to repair damaged or degenerating human brain. Effective neurotransplantation has so far been based on the use of fetal brain tissue derived from aborted embryos or fetuses. The ethical issues related to this new therapeutic approach therefore not only concern the possible adverse side effects for a neural graft-receiving patient, but also the relationship between the requirements for fetal tissue and the decision-making process for induced abortion. (...) Although for decades human embryos and fetuses have been the subject of biomedical studies, and, in principle, their use has therefore not been seen as ethically objectionable, the above points made it necessary to reconsider the moral issues. The present paper points out several of these issues, both from the donor and acceptor (patient) point of view. The conclusion is that under a series of restrictions intended to prevent the use of grafts from encouraging induced abortions and to maintain high standards of respect for life and human dignity, neurotransplantation using embryonic or fetal brain tissue parts cannot be rejected on moral grounds. (shrink)

This essay concerns what people should do in conflict situations when a doubt of fact bears on settling whether an alternative under consideration is legitimate or not. Its principal audience are those who believe that abortion can be legitimate when not having an abortion gives rise to serious harms that can be avoided by having one, but who are concerned that fetuses might feel pain when being aborted, and who believe that causing unnecessary pain should be avoided when doing so (...) would not pose an undue burden. The essay remains neutral on the substantive questions of the moral status of the unborn and the morality of abortion. The question of fetal pain has taken center stage in the last few years in the .. (shrink)

This paper uses six policy problems in public health to illustrate the complexity of value considerations in decision-making, and derives an ethic for health protection policies based on the primacy of non-harming. In the first part, health policy is shown to require value considerations beyond simple utilitarianism. In the second, the author posits that much of health impairment can be traced to erosions of health outside the immediate control and consent of the individual. Accordingly, he argues that health impairing actions (...) on the part of others warrant strict regulations in spite of the paternalistic nature of such interventions. The priority for these interventions should be set along a gradient of vulnerability and autonomy, with the greatest hazards to non-consent giving persons warranting the greatest controls. Special attention to fetuses and developing infants is thereby justified, and actions which prevent harms are shown to have priority over those which mitigate harms, ameliorate their effects or promote good. (shrink)

In the wake of Republican gains in November 2010, anti-abortion bills were common and aggressive during the 2011 legislative sessions.1 State general assemblies passed statutes that include provisions to (a) block abortions after twenty weeks of gestation, (b) require doctors to tell pregnant women that fetuses feel pain at or before twenty weeks of gestation, (c) prevent state or federal health care dollars from reaching clinics and physician groups that provide abortions as part of their services,2 and (d) require doctors (...) to describe the ultrasound images of the fetus and offer women the option to view the ultrasound and listen to the fetal heartbeat before an abortion.3 These statutes are troubling .. (shrink)

It is frequently argued that home birth is morally irresponsible because it involves the taking of risks on behalf of the fetus. Against this position, I argue three things. First, the fact that home birth involves risks does not necessarily entail that choosing or attending one is morally unacceptable, irresponsible or wrong. Second, parents have a prima facia prerogative to decide on behalf of their fetuses and children whether risks should be taken. While this prima facia prerogative can be overridden, (...) reasonable and widely accepted criteria for doing so are not met in the case of home birth. Third, since the current attitudes and behaviours of physicians with regard to home birth constitute a de facto morally and socially unjustifiable overriding of an informed parental decision, physician autonomy should be restricted so as to preserve the autonomy of the medical consumer. (shrink)

It has been argued that killing persons is wrong because it deprives them of future experiences. Some opponents of abortion argue that the same apples to potential persons—fetuses, zygotes, embryos, etc.—so that to destroy them is as wrong as killing a person. Phil Gosselin rejects this position, employing the reductio argument that if it were so, contraception would be equally wrong, since it destroys potential persons that are gamete pairs. I argue in this paper that Gosselin’s position on the ontological (...) status of the “victim” of contraception, the gamete pair, is flawed in such a way that his conclusion that there is no morally relevant difference between what is destroyed by abortion and what is destroyed by contraception fails. A gamete pair is ontologically different from a fetus; “victims” of contraception and victims of abortion are not significantly analogous, and the reductio that depends upon their similarity for its force is unsuccessful. (shrink)

Living things are often plastic during their early development and are moulded by the environment. Many human fetuses have to adapt to a limited supply of nutrients, and in doing so they permanently change their physiology and metabolism. These programmed changes may be the origins of a number of diseases in later life, including coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes and hypertension.

Those who favor and those who oppose the interruption of pregnancy with anencephalic fetuses answer the question ‘what is the right to life?’ differently. Those in favor argue that life exists only when it is ‘viable’; that is to say, when cerebral activities occur or may occur. Those who oppose it argue that it is not possible to describe ‘life’ as residing in a particular quality, since life ‘exists from conception’. In fact, in both cases, the noun ‘life’ is being (...) defined by a particular quality, either as ‘viable’ or as ‘existing from the time of conception’. Also, simply saying that ‘there is life’ cannot count as a neutral answer since those who utter such a sentence employ an unspecified criterion to establish if there is life or not. There are two possible ways to investigate this controversial matter: either we look for a definition of ‘life’ which is neutral and objective and does not reside in a particular quality or we try to establish whether or not the search for a neutral point of view can lead to a satisfactory answer. In this article we explore the argument against the interruption of pregnancy – as defined above – in order to show 1) the impossibility of establishing a neutral point of view regarding knowledge; 2) the existence of a psychological motivation which justifies the longing for an absolute criterion for the evaluation of human actions. This psychological motivation is analyzed from a Nietzschean perspective. (shrink)

Lockeans, as well as their critics, have pointed out that the memory criterion is likely to mean that none of us were ever fetuses or even infants due to the lack of direct psychological connections between then and now. But what has been overlooked is that the memory criterion leads to either backward causation and a violation of Locke’s own very plausible principle that we can have only one origin, or backward causation and a number of overlapping people where we (...) thought there was just one. I will argue that such problems cannot be avoided by replacing direct psychological connections with overlapping chains of connectedness—what has been called “psychological continuity.”. (shrink)

The abortion controversy as a cultural phenomenon is itself socially troublesome. However, current biotechnology research programs point to a possible technological fix. If we could harmlessly remove fetuses from women’s bodies and transfer them to other women, cryonic suspension, or ectogenetic devices, this might mitigate the controversy. Pro-lifers’ apparent minimal requirement would be met—fetuses would not be killed. Pro-choicers’ apparent minimal requirement would be met—women could end pregnancies and control their bodies. This option has been optimistically anticipated by some ethicists, (...) but some people reject this fix because they are averse to being genetically related to a child they are not raising, insisting on the right to destroy the fetus as well as have it removed. Inthis paper I examine these issues, asking what the real issues in abortion rights are, whether technology can help, what the scope of reproductive autonomy is, and how technology will change the abortion debate. (shrink)

In this essay, I provide evidence that a new generation of prochoice advocates wishes to move away from defending abortion rights via the view that fetal life has little or no value (for example, as Mary Anne Warren does in her “On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion”) and toward a more complex view of abortion rights. This newer view simultaneously grants that fetuses are more than simply “clumps of cells,” that they are, to some extent, entities that possess (...) some degree of value, and also that women still have the right to decide whether they wish to continue a pregnancy (for example, as can be found in the writings of Rosalind Hursthouse, Judith Jarvis Thomson, and Margaret Olivia Little). Prima facie, this may sound like an impossible task—an instance of “having your cake and eating it too”—but I will show throughout my paper that, and how, such a task can indeed be accomplished. (shrink)

We are beings endowed with “personal capacities”—the capacity for reason, for a concept of self, perhaps more. Among ontologically salient views about what else we are, I focus on the “Big Three.” According to animalism, we are animals that have psychological properties only contingently. According to psychologistic materialism, we are material beings; according to substance dualism, we are either immaterial beings or composites of immaterial and material ones; but according to both psychologistic materialism and substance dualism, we essentially have some (...) psychological properties. I argue that—contrary to what has been argued and is natural to think—none of the Big Three yields different assignments of moral status to early fetuses from any of the others, and consequently the moral status of early abortion doesn’t depend on which (if any) of these views of personal ontology is correct. (shrink)

Technologies are being developed for significantly altering the traits of existing persons (or fetuses or embryos) and of future persons via germ line modification. The availability of such technologies may affect our philosophical, legal, and everyday understandings of several important concepts, including that of personal identity. I consider whether the idea of personal identity requires reconstruction, revision or abandonment in the face of such possibilities of technological intervention into the nature and form of an individual's attributes. This requires an account (...) of the work done by the concept of personal identity, and an explanation of what “conceptual impacts of technology” and “conceptual reconstruction” might mean. Our existing notions of personal identity and related ideas such as personhood and autonomy may seem unable to comfortably accommodate the possibilities of technologically directed trait formation and development. This is a matter of moral and legal importance because the idea of personal identity embeds major values and reflects value-laden beliefs and attitudes. The assumed endurance of identity underlies interpersonal relationships, the assignment of rewards and punishments, and the very idea of what constitutes an autonomous person. Perhaps radical restructuring or even abandonment of concepts are sometimes called for when the world changes drastically, but I suggest that conceptual modification is not “compelled” for personal identity except under extreme circumstances—the remote possibility of rapid human “shape shifting” where physical and mentational attributes can be transformed quickly and continuously. Efforts to enhance human traits, including merit attributes and other resource-attractive characteristics (e.g., intellectual and athletic aptitudes, physical size and appearance), may generate legal problems wherever the persistence of identity is presupposed. Some advance speculation is thus warranted on how trait change generally will be managed within our legal and socioeconomic systems, and more particularly on rights of access to trait-altering technologies. I mention the possible distributive effects of enhancing highly-resource attractive traits, including the strengthening individual powers to acquire still more increments in such traits in a self-reinforcing cycle. A brief review of some constitutional issues bearing on trait change completes the discussion. I conclude that existing and projected technologies do not impel the abandonment or remodeling of the idea of personal identity. We may, however, have to reconsider some uses of this concept in different settings, to rethink our understandings of ideas of merit and desert, and to deal with the distribution of resources that may enlarge and entrench the “distances” between social and economic groups. (shrink)

In debates over issues such as abortion, a primary principle on which the Roman Catholic outlook is based is the natural law mandate to respect human life rooted in the Aristotelian philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. This principle, however, is limited by focusing on the obligation not to kill innocent humans and thereby neglects another important facet of the Aristotelian-Thomistic ethical viewpoint—namely, obligations that bind human beings in relationships of mutual dependence and responsibility. I argue that there is a need to (...) cultivate a “virtue of acknowledged responsibility” and conclude by addressing a prevalent issue in contemporary society: absent paternal responsibility. My aim is to show that there is an interesting and often neglected rationale in Catholic moral understanding for “deadbeat dad” laws that compel men to take responsibility for any children or fetuses they father and to assist women who give birth to those children or carry those fetuses. (shrink)

In a recent IPQ article, Christopher Kaczor gave a promising argument in which he strove to reconcile the common belief that obstetric craniotomy (the crushing of nearlyborn fetuses’ heads) is immoral with his clear and intuitively attractive account of intention. One of Kaczor’s crucial assumptions is that intentional mutilation is morally impermissible. In this article I argue that Kaczor’s analysis has three potential problems: (1) the mutilating features of craniotomy do not appear to meet Kaczor’s criteria for being intended, so (...) his account doesn’t show craniotomy to be impermissible; (2) some commonly-accepted acts, including voluntary sterilization, are acts of intentional mutilation according to Kaczor’s definition and are thus forbidden on his account; and (3) some acts that intuitively seem to constitute intentional mutilation do not meet Kaczor’s definition of “mutilation” and are not ruled out by his account. I suggest slight modifications to Kaczor’s account that might address these difficulties. (shrink)

The implementation of new methods of treating and preventing disease raises many question of both technical and moral character. Currently, many studies focus on developing a screening test for preeclampsia (PE), a disease complicating 2–8% of pregnancies, potentially causing severe consequences for pregnant women and their fetuses. The purpose is to develop a test that can identify pregnancies at high risk for developing PE sufficiently early in pregnancy to allow for prophylaxis. However, the question of implementing a screening test for (...) PE does not only involve an evaluation of technical feasibility and clinical efficacy, it also requires an analysis of how the test influences the conditions and choices for those tested. This study evaluates state-of-the-art techniques for preeclampsia screening in an ethical framework, pointing out the central areas of moral relevance within the context of such screening activity. Furthermore, we propose ethical guidelines that a screening programme for PE should meet in order to become an uncontroversial addition to prenatal health care. (shrink)

: Today's personable, sanitized images of human embryos and fetuses require an audience that is literally and metaphorically distanced from dead specimens. Yet scientists must handle dead specimens to produce embryological knowledge, which only then can be transformed into beautiful photographs and talking fetuses. I begin with an account of Gertrude Stein's experience making a model of a fetal brain. Her tactile encounter is contrasted to the avant-garde artistic tradition that later came to dominate embryo imagery. This essay shows the (...) embryo visualizations portrayed in a contemporary coffee-table book about gestational development to be a remarkable political achievement predicated, in part, on keeping hidden the unsavory details of anatomical technique that transform dead specimens into icons of life. (shrink)

It is frequently argued that home birth is morally irresponsible because it involves the taking of risks on behalf of the fetus. Against this position, I argue three things. First, the fact that home birth involves risks does not necessarily entail that choosing or attending one is morally unacceptable, irresponsible or wrong. Second, parents have a prima facia prerogative to decide on behalf of their fetuses and children whether risks should be taken. While this prima facia prerogative can be overridden, (...) reasonable and widely accepted criteria for doing so are not met in the case of home birth. Third, since the current attitudes and behaviours of physicians with regard to home birth constitute a de facto morally and socially unjustifiable overriding of an informed parental decision, physician autonomy should be restricted so as to preserve the autonomy of the medical consumer. (shrink)

Breast milk and the placenta are phenomena of female human embodiment that challenge the philosophical notion of separate, sovereign subjects independent of other human be­ings and an objective world “out there.” A feminist phenomenological analysis, indebted to Merleau-Ponty and Irigaray, reveals placenta and milk to be intercorporeal, “chiasmic” forms of shared organic existence. This analysis is a philosophical and psychological exploration of “matrotopy,” i.e., the fact that humans eat their mothers through breast milk and placenta. This exploration, however, requires an (...) understanding of the larger environmental field which sustains the female body and its offspring. Environmental degradation, particularly through estrogen mimicking substances in plastics and pesticides, targets the endocrine system of developing fetuses and endangers the future of the human species from the inside. Invisible organo-chemical technologies pose a new and immediate danger and ethical challenge to women and men in the twenty-first century. A “placental ethics” respects the insertion of the human being into the dynamic field of nature; it calls for an awareness that, unless we develop a changed attitude toward technology, the gradual extinction of our species continues to happen in female bodies today. (shrink)

Many discussions of the moral status of “mindless beings” such as the permanently comatose, the dead, trees, and human fetuses seem to take for granted the thesis that it is improper to appeal to emotions to establish the fundamental distinction between “persona” (beings capableof rights “in their own right”) and “things” (beings not capable of rights except in some fictional or iIlusory sense). Persons are persons, however we may feel about them.That thesis seems to be a major obstacle to any (...) nonutilitarian account of the personhood of mindless beings.I argue that the thesis of independence is true, if at aIl, only for one class of persons (“rational agents”). Beyond that class, our emotional response to a being can be relevant to its moral status. Acting on some consideration (or believing something in virtue of it) can be rational inthe “constitutive”, “regulative”, or “associative” sense. A consideration is a good reason if it is rational in any of these senses. The importance of this claim is shown by briefly examining Feinberg’s weIl-known argument that it is a conceptual truth that mindless beings are incapable ofrights. His argument assumes that our emotions cannot be rational in the appropriate sense and coIlapses without that assumption. (shrink)

This article is based on ethnographic research conducted between 1998 and 2000 in British Columbia, Canada. In this article Luce brings together the narratives of queer women she interviewed about their experiences of trying to become parents with her own stories about doing the research. Both sets of stories explore the ways in which relationships between people are reproduced and represented through images of sexuality, reproduction, queerness, parents, and families. Shifting between telling about the tensions she experienced while doing ethnographic (...) fieldwork and retelling women's stories about how their relationships to partners, fetuses, babies, and donors were perceived, the article draws attention to both political and methodological questions. (shrink)

Mary Anne Warren's claim that there is room for only one person with full and equal rights inside a single human skin ([1], p. 63) calls attention to the vast range of moral conflict engendered by assigning full basic moral rights to fetuses. Thereby, it serves as a goad to thinking about conflicts between pregnant women and their fetuses in a way that emphasizes relationships rather than rights. I sketch out what a care orientation might suggest about resolving gestational conflicts. (...) I also argue that the care orientation, with its commitment to the significance of the partial and the particular, cannot be absorbed within standard, impartialist moral theory. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that bioethics suffers from a masculinist approach-what I call “ethical androcentrism.” Despite the genesis of other legitimate approaches to ethics (such as feminist, narrative, and communicative ethics), this masculinist tradition persists. The first part of my paper concerns the problem of ethical androcentrism, and how it is manifest in our typical ways of “doing” bioethics (as teachers, ethicists, policymakers, and medical practitioners). After arguing that bioethics suffers from a masculinist ethic, I consider the case of (...) maternal substance addiction to show how this ethic negatively affects the treatment of pregnant addicts. I argue that by treating maternal substance addiction from an androcentric approach, we fail to serve both pregnant addicts and their fetuses; furthermore, we misrepresent the intentional state of pregnant substance addicts and label them “prenatal abusers.” If maternal substance addiction is to be ethically addressed -- and if pregnant substance addicts are to be effectively treated -- we cannot tacitly accept an androcentric ethic. (shrink)

Subpart B of 45 Code of Federal Regulations Part 46 (CFR) identifies the criteria according to which research involving pregnant women, human fetuses, and neonates can be conducted ethically in the United States. As such, pregnant women and fetuses fall into a category requiring “additional protections,” often referred to as “vulnerable populations.” The CFR does not define vulnerability, but merely gives examples of vulnerable groups by pointing to different categories of potential research subjects needing additional protections. In this paper, I (...) assess critically the role of this categorization of pregnant women involved in research as “vulnerable,” both as separate entities and in combination with the fetuses they carry. In particular, I do three things: (1) demonstrate that pregnant women qua pregnancy are either not “vulnerable” according to any meaningful definition of that term or that such vulnerability is irrelevant to her status as a research participant; (2) argue that while a fetus may be vulnerable in terms of dependency, this categorization does not equate to the vulnerability of the pregnant woman; and (3) suggest that any vulnerability that appends to women is precisely the result of federal regulations and dubious public perceptions about pregnant women. I conclude by demonstrating how this erroneous characterization of pregnant women as “vulnerable” and its associated protections have not only impeded vital research for pregnant women and their fetuses, but have also negatively affected the inclusion of all women in clinical research. (shrink)

In this chapter, I describe my “post-diagnosis” experiences as the parent of an autistic child, those years in which I tried, but failed, to make sense of the overwhelming and often nonsensical information I received about autism. I argue that immediately after being given an autism diagnosis, parents are pressured into making what amounts to a life-long commitment to a therapy program that (they are told) will not only dramatically change their child, but their family’s financial situation and even their (...) entire mode of existence. Moreover, despite information overload, many treatment programs for autism rely on empty jargon and make completely unrealistic promises, so parents are left feeling overwhelmed and panicked. Even well respected therapy programs encourage parents to spend liberally. Indeed, autistic therapists, who help construct what I refer to as the Culture of Autism, advise parents to commit to a minimum of 35 to 45 hours of intensive therapy every week. The implications are clear: for a parent who works full-time, their autistic child becomes a second full-time job. Autism is big business right now, and therapists are pushing parents to the brink of desperation. So it is not too surprising that there is a desperate cry for a more permanent solution—which is why researchers seek to cure autism. But there are two ways to conceptualize cure. A Therapeutic Cure model (TC) conceives of a cure as a beneficial treatment for the patient that eliminates or ameliorates the harms of the disease or condition. But the notion of a therapeutic cure for autism is highly implausible, given the complexities of autism. Indeed, at this point, the vast majority of researchers have come to the conclusion that the idea of a therapeutic cure for autism is simply a non-starter. Therefore the bulk of research seeking a cure for autism focuses instead on a second approach, which I refer to as the Negative Eugenics Cure model (NEC). With this model, the intention is to eliminate the disease or condition without regard for the health or well-being of the organism carrying the disease or condition. So, with regard to autism, researchers are focusing on identifying genetic markers for autism that can be detected in utero, or in embryos, so that autistic fetuses can be eliminated and autism eradicated by preventing the existence of autistic individuals. I review both models and argue that both fail to provide convincing arguments that the “solution” either offers is desirable. Both rest on the assumption that autism renders a life not worth living which, all things considered, is false. Instead of pushing to cure autism, an idea pervasive in this Culture of Autism, I contend that autistics are individuals with lives worth living. Moreover, rather than expend millions on research to search for the means to eliminate autism, we should instead expend our resources to ensure autistic individuals have access to support they may need. If the phenomenology of autism were better understood and appreciated, the panicked demand for a cure for autism might abate and perhaps autism could be seen as having value in and of its own right. (shrink)

Discussions of reproductive responsibility generally draw heavily upon the principles of nonmaleficence and beneficence. However, these principles are typically only applied to women due to the incorrect belief that only women can cause fetal harm. The cultural perception that women are likely to cause fetal and child harm is reflected in numerous social norms, policies, and laws. Conversely, there is little public discussion of men and fetal and child harm, which implies that men do not (or cannot) cause such harm. (...) My goal in this paper is to begin to fill the void in the academic literature about men’s reproductive responsibility by highlighting the health-related, economic, and social harms men can cause to potential fetuses and children and then examining what it would mean to hold them responsible for preventing these harms. Applying the principles of nonmaleficence and beneficence to men, I conclude that men have a moral duty to use contraception if their behavior—past, current, or future—could harm the potential fetuses and children who result from their unprotected sexual behavior. (shrink)

"The Ethics of Fetal Research" distinguishes between the legal and ethical questions raised by experimentation on still-living human fetuses.

The newest addition to the Point/Counterpoint Series, Abortion: Three Perspectives features a debate between four noted philosophers - Michael Tooley, Celia Wolf-Devine, Philip E. Devine, and Alison M. Jaggar - with three different perspectives on abortion: the "liberal" pro-choice approach, the "communitarian" pro-life approach, and the "gender justice" approach. Each of the authors takes a controversial position, and all push their philosophical opinions to their logical limits. All of the views presented are radical, both in the sense of exploring fundamental (...) assumptions and in the sense of diverging from mainstream opinion in America. They do not rely on religious authority; therefore their arguments address all citizens regardless of their religious beliefs. The first "liberal" pro-choice approach is Michael Tooley's. After examining, analyzing, and challenging the most important arguments for a right to life before birth, he holds that abortion is always morally permissible in itself. He argues that it is unreasonable to claim that human embryos/fetuses either have or develop a right to life before birth. Celia Wolf-Devine and Philip E. Devine, however, take a "communitarian" pro-life position, arguing that the human organism is a person from the point at which it first came to be. They also argue that, because its creators are responsible for its existence, the prospective parents have a moral obligation to care for its life. Finally, Alison Jaggar explores abortion in light of political philosophy and social justice. She argues that women everywhere have a human right to abortion, that abortion rights are necessary for gender equality, and that the availability of abortion is indispensable for pubic health and social development. As philosophers, the authors have special skills in critical analysis and thinking systematically about values. Because they do not rely on religious authority, their arguments address all citizens regardless of their religious beliefs. By drawing examples from real life, employing logic, philosophy, and empirical data, and addressing views of abortion from across other disciplines, the authors present a well-informed and up-to-date discussion. Advanced courses in ethics, contemporary moral problems, sex and gender, and bioethics will find this text useful and relevant. (shrink)