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Bruce P. Blackshaw [38]Bruce Philip Blackshaw [16]
  1. The Problem of Spontaneous Abortion: Is the Pro-Life Position Morally Monstrous?Bruce P. Blackshaw & Daniel Rodger - 2019 - The New Bioethics 25 (2):103-120.
    A substantial proportion of human embryos spontaneously abort soon after conception, and ethicists have argued this is problematic for the pro-life view that a human embryo has the same moral status as an adult from conception. Firstly, if human embryos are our moral equals, this entails spontaneous abortion is one of humanity’s most important problems, and it is claimed this is absurd, and a reductio of the moral status claim. Secondly, it is claimed that pro-life advocates do not act as (...)
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  2. Prolife Hypocrisy: Why Inconsistency Arguments Do Not Matter.Nicholas Colgrove, Bruce Philip Blackshaw & Daniel Rodger - 2020 - Journal of Medical Ethics (Online First):1-6.
    Opponents of abortion are often described as ‘inconsistent’ (hypocrites) in terms of their beliefs, actions and/or priorities. They are alleged to do too little to combat spontaneous abortion, they should be adopting cryopreserved embryos with greater frequency and so on. These types of arguments—which we call ‘inconsistency arguments’—conform to a common pattern. Each specifies what consistent opponents of abortion would do (or believe), asserts that they fail to act (or believe) accordingly and concludes that they are inconsistent. Here, we show (...)
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  3. Gestaticide: Killing the Subject of the Artificial Womb.Daniel Rodger, Nicholas Colgrove & Bruce Philip Blackshaw - 2020 - Journal of Medical Ethics 47 (12):e53.
    The rapid development of artificial womb technologies means that we must consider if and when it is permissible to kill the human subject of ectogestation—recently termed a ‘gestateling’ by Elizabeth Chloe Romanis—prior to ‘birth’. We describe the act of deliberately killing the gestateling as gestaticide, and argue that there are good reasons to maintain that gestaticide is morally equivalent to infanticide, which we consider to be morally impermissible. First, we argue that gestaticide is harder to justify than abortion, primarily because (...)
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  4. Questionable benefits and unavoidable personal beliefs: defending conscientious objection for abortion.Bruce Philip Blackshaw & Daniel Rodger - 2020 - Journal of Medical Ethics 3 (46):178-182.
    Conscientious objection in healthcare has come under heavy criticism on two grounds recently, particularly regarding abortion provision. First, critics claim conscientious objection involves a refusal to provide a legal and beneficial procedure requested by a patient, denying them access to healthcare. Second, they argue the exercise of conscientious objection is based on unverifiable personal beliefs. These characteristics, it is claimed, disqualify conscientious objection in healthcare. Here, we defend conscientious objection in the context of abortion provision. We show that abortion has (...)
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  5. Artificial Consciousness Is Morally Irrelevant.Bruce P. Blackshaw - 2023 - American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 14 (2):72-74.
    It is widely agreed that possession of consciousness contributes to an entity’s moral status, even if it is not necessary for moral status (Levy and Savulescu 2009). An entity is considered to have...
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  6. Beyond Infanticide: How Psychological Accounts of Persons Can Justify Harming Infants.Daniel Rodger, Bruce P. Blackshaw & Calum Miller - 2018 - The New Bioethics 24 (2):106-121.
    It is commonly argued that a serious right to life is grounded only in actual, relatively advanced psychological capacities a being has acquired. The moral permissibility of abortion is frequently argued for on these grounds. Increasingly it is being argued that such accounts also entail the permissibility of infanticide, with several proponents of these theories accepting this consequence. We show, however, that these accounts imply the permissibility of even more unpalatable acts than infanticide performed on infants: organ harvesting, live experimentation, (...)
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  7. Frozen Embryos and The Obligation to Adopt.Bruce P. Blackshaw & Nicholas Colgrove - 2020 - Bioethics (8):1-5.
    Rob Lovering has developed an interesting new critique of views that regard embryos as equally valuable as other human beings: the moral argument for frozen human embryo adoption. The argument is aimed at those who believe that the death of a frozen embryo is a very bad thing, and Lovering concludes that some who hold this view ought to prevent one of these deaths by adopting and gestating a frozen embryo. Contra Lovering, we show that there are far more effective (...)
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  8. The impairment argument for the immorality of abortion: A reply.Bruce P. Blackshaw - 2019 - Bioethics 33 (6):723-724.
    In his recent article Perry Hendricks presents what he calls the impairment argument to show that abortion is immoral. To do so, he argues that to give a fetus fetal alcohol syndrome is immoral. Because killing the fetus impairs it more than giving it fetal alcohol syndrome, Hendricks concludes that killing the fetus must also be immoral. Here, I claim that killing a fetus does not impair it in the way that giving it fetal alcohol syndrome does. By examining the (...)
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  9.  98
    Ectogenesis and the case against the right to the death of the foetus.Bruce P. Blackshaw & Daniel Rodger - 2018 - Bioethics 33 (1):76-81.
    Ectogenesis, or the use of an artificial womb to allow a foetus to develop, will likely become a reality within a few decades, and could significantly affect the abortion debate. We first examine the implications for Judith Jarvis Thomson’s violinist analogy, which argues for a woman’s right to withdraw life support from the foetus and so terminate her pregnancy, even if the foetus is granted full moral status. We show that on Thomson’s reasoning, there is no right to the death (...)
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  10. COVID-19 Vaccination Should not be Mandatory for Health and Social Care Workers.Daniel Rodger & Bruce P. Blackshaw - 2022 - The New Bioethics 28 (1):27-39.
    A COVID-19 vaccine mandate is being introduced for health and social care workers in England, and those refusing to comply will either be redeployed or have their employment terminated. We argue th...
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  11.  79
    The impairment argument for the immorality of abortion revisited.Bruce P. Blackshaw - 2019 - Bioethics (Online):211-213.
    Perry Hendricks has recently presented the impairment argument for the immorality of abortion, to which I responded and he has now replied. The argument is based on the premise that impairing a fetus with fetal alcohol syndrome is immoral, and on the principle that if impairing an organism is immoral, impairing it to a higher degree is also—the impairment principle. If abortion impairs a fetus to a higher degree, then this principle entails abortion is immoral. In my reply, I argued (...)
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  12. Can prolife theorists justify an exception for rape?Bruce P. Blackshaw - 2022 - Bioethics 36 (1):49-53.
    Prolife theorists typically hold to the claim that all human beings possess equal moral status from conception and consequently possess a right to life. This, they believe, entails that abortion is impermissible in all circumstances. Critics characterize this as an extreme anti-abortion position, as it prima facie allows no exceptions, even in cases of rape. Here, I examine whether the prolife claim regarding equal moral status is compatible with a more attractive moderate stance that permits an exception in the case (...)
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  13.  88
    Parental responsibilities and moral status.Bruce Philip Blackshaw & Daniel Rodger - 2020 - Journal of Medical Ethics 47 (3):187-188.
    Prabhpal Singh has recently defended a relational account of the difference in moral status between fetuses and newborns as a way of explaining why abortion is permissible and infanticide is not. He claims that only a newborn can stand in a parent–child relation, not a fetus, and this relation has a moral dimension that bestows moral value. We challenge Singh’s reasoning, arguing that the case he presents is unconvincing. We suggest that the parent–child relation is better understood as an extension (...)
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  14. Using animal-derived constituents in anaesthesia and surgery: the case for disclosing to patients.Daniel Rodger & Bruce P. Blackshaw - 2019 - BMC Medical Ethics 20 (1):1-9.
    Animal-derived constituents are frequently used in anaesthesia and surgery, and patients are seldom informed of this. This is problematic for a growing minority of patients who may have religious or secular concerns about their use in their care. It is not currently common practice to inform patients about the use of animal-derived constituents, yet what little empirical data does exist indicates that many patients want the opportunity to give their informed consent. First, we review the nature and scale of the (...)
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  15. Why inconsistency arguments fail: a response to Shaw.Bruce P. Blackshaw, Nicholas Colgrove & Daniel Rodger - 2022 - The New Bioethics 28 (2):139-151.
    Opponents of abortion are commonly said to be inconsistent in their beliefs or actions, and to fail in their obligations to prevent the deaths of embryos and fetuses from causes other than induced...
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  16.  31
    (1 other version)Inconsistency arguments still do not matter.Bruce P. Blackshaw, Nicholas Colgrove & Daniel Rodger - 2021 - Journal of Medical Ethics 1:1-4.
    William Simkulet has recently criticised Colgrove et al’s defence against what they have called inconsistency arguments—arguments that claim opponents of abortion (OAs) act in ways inconsistent with their underlying beliefs about human fetuses (eg, that human fetuses are persons at conception). Colgrove et al presented three objections to inconsistency arguments, which Simkulet argues are unconvincing. Further, he maintains that OAs who hold that the fetus is a person at conception fail to act on important issues such as the plight of (...)
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  17.  60
    Is pregnancy really a good Samaritan act?Bruce P. Blackshaw - 2021 - Christian Bioethics 27 (2):158–168.
    One of the most influential philosophical arguments in favour of the permissibility of abortion is Judith Jarvis Thomson’s violinist analogy, presented in ‘A Defense of Abortion’. Its appeal for pro-choice advocates lies in Thomson’s granting that the fetus is a person with equivalent moral status to any other human being, and yet demonstrating—to those who accept her reasoning—that abortion is still permissible. In her argument, Thomson draws heavily on the parable of the Good Samaritan, arguing that gestating a fetus in (...)
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  18.  70
    The Ethics of Killing: Strengthening the Substance View with Time-relative Interests.Bruce P. Blackshaw - 2019 - The New Bioethics (Online):1-17.
    The substance view is an account of personhood that regards all human beings as possessing instrinsic value and moral status equivalent to that of an adult human being. Consequently, substance view proponents typically regard abortion as impermissible in most circumstances. The substance view, however, has difficulty accounting for certain intuitions regarding the badness of death for embryos and fetuses, and the wrongness of killing them. Jeff McMahan’s time-relative interest account is designed to cater for such intuitions, and so I present (...)
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  19.  27
    Zooming in on Justice: The Case for Virtual Bioethics Conferencing.Bruce P. Blackshaw, Daniel Rodger & Daniel J. Hurst - 2024 - American Journal of Bioethics 24 (4):60-62.
    In their target article, “Proposed Principles for International Bioethics Conferencing: Anti-Discriminatory, Global, and Inclusive,” Jecker et al. (2024) highlight the growing international scope o...
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  20. Hormone replacement therapy: informed consent without assessment?Toni C. Saad, Bruce Philip Blackshaw & Daniel Rodger - 2019 - Journal of Medical Ethics 45 (12):1-2.
    Florence Ashley has argued that requiring patients with gender dysphoria to undergo an assessment and referral from a mental health professional before undergoing hormone replacement therapy is unethical and may represent an unconscious hostility towards transgender people. We respond, first, by showing that Ashley has conflated the self-reporting of symptoms with self-diagnosis, and that this is not consistent with the standard model of informed consent to medical treatment. Second, we note that the model of informed consent involved in cosmetic surgery (...)
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  21.  42
    Defending the substance view against its critics.Bruce P. Blackshaw - 2021 - The New Bioethics 28 (1):54-67.
    Recently, the substance view of persons has been heavily criticized for the counterintuitive conclusions it seems to imply in scenarios such as embryo rescue cases and embryo loss. These criticisms...
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  22.  31
    (1 other version)Hypocrisy, Consistency, and Opponents of Abortion.Bruce P. Blackshaw, Nicholas Colgrove & Daniel Rodger - 2022 - In Nicholas Colgrove, Bruce P. Blackshaw & Daniel Rodger (eds.), Agency, Pregnancy and Persons: Essays in Defense of Human Life. Oxford, UK: Routledge. pp. 127-144.
    Arguments that claim opponents of abortion are inconsistent in some manner are becoming increasingly prevalent both in academic and public discourse. For example, it is common to claim that they spend considerable time and resources to oppose induced abortion, but show little concern regarding the far greater numbers of naturally occurring intrauterine deaths (miscarriages). Critics argue that if abortion opponents took their beliefs about the value of embryos and fetuses seriously, they would invest more time and resources combating these naturally (...)
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  23. Quotas: Enabling Conscientious Objection to Coexist with Abortion Access.Daniel Rodger & Bruce P. Blackshaw - 2020 - Health Care Analysis 29 (2):154-169.
    The debate regarding the role of conscientious objection in healthcare has been protracted, with increasing demands for curbs on conscientious objection. There is a growing body of evidence that indicates that in some cases, high rates of conscientious objection can affect access to legal medical services such as abortion—a major concern of critics of conscientious objection. Moreover, few solutions have been put forward that aim to satisfy both this concern and that of defenders of conscientious objection—being expected to participate in (...)
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  24. Meeting the Epicurean challenge: a reply to Christensen.Bruce P. Blackshaw & Daniel Rodger - 2019 - Journal of Medical Ethics 45 (7):478-479.
    In ’Abortion and deprivation: a reply to Marquis’, Anna Christensen contends that Don Marquis’ influential ’future like ours’ argument for the immorality of abortion faces a significant challenge from the Epicurean claim that human beings cannot be harmed by their death. If deprivation requires a subject, then abortion cannot deprive a fetus of a future of value, as no individual exists to be deprived once death has occurred. However, the Epicurean account also implies that the wrongness of murder is also (...)
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  25. Abortion policies at the bedside: a response.Bruce Philip Blackshaw - 2023 - Journal of Medical Ethics 1 (12):852-853.
    Hersey et al have outlined a proposed ethical framework for assessing abortion policies that locates the effect of government legislation between the provider and the patient, emphasising its influence on interactions between them. They claim that their framework offers an alternative to the personal moral claims that lie behind legislation restricting abortion access. However, they fail to observe that their own understanding of reproductive justice and the principles of medical ethics are similarly predicated on their individual moral beliefs. Consequently, the (...)
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  26.  67
    Applying Pascal’s Wager to Procreation.Bruce P. Blackshaw - forthcoming - Sophia.
    Pascal’s wager uses decision theory to argue that it is rational to attempt to nurture belief in God, based on the expected utility of believing (infinite happiness) compared to not believing (at best, only finite happiness). A belief in an eternal conscious torment in hell (infinite suffering) for non-believers makes the differences in expected utility even more apparent, strengthening the argument. Similar reasoning can also be used to calculate the expected moral value of actions, including procreation. Under theism, if possible (...)
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  27. Agency, Pregnancy and Persons: Essays in Defense of Human Life.Nicholas Colgrove, Bruce P. Blackshaw & Daniel Rodger (eds.) - 2022 - Oxford, UK: Routledge.
    This book provides extensive and critical engagement with some of the most recent and compelling arguments favoring abortion choice. It features original essays from leading and emerging philosophers, bioethicists and medical professionals that present philosophically sophisticated and novel arguments against abortion choice. The chapters in this book are divided into three thematic sections. The first set of essays focuses primarily on unborn human individuals--zygotes, embryos and fetuses. In these chapters it is argued, for example, that human organisms begin to exist (...)
  28. Detached from Humanity: Artificial Gestation and the Christian Dilemma.Daniel Rodger & Bruce P. Blackshaw - 2024 - Christian Bioethics 30 (2):85-95.
    The development of artificial womb technology is proceeding rapidly and will present important ethical and theological challenges for Christians. While there has been extensive secular discourse on artificial wombs in recent years, there has been little Christian engagement with this topic. There are broadly two primary uses of artificial womb technology—ectogestation as a form of enhanced neonatal care, where some of the gestation period takes place in an artificial womb, and ectogenesis, where the entire gestation period is within an artificial (...)
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  29. Contraception is not a reductio of Marquis.Bruce P. Blackshaw - 2023 - Bioethics 37 (5):508-510.
    Don Marquis’ future-like-ours account argues that abortion is seriously immoral because itdeprives the embryo or fetus of a valuable future much like our own. Marquis was mindful ofcontraception being reductio ad absurdum of his reasoning, and argued that prior tofertilisation, there is not an identifiable subject of harm. Contra Marquis, Tomer Chaffercontends that the ovum is a plausible subject of harm, and therefore contraception deprives theovum of a future-like-ours. In response, I argue that being an identifiable subject of harm is (...)
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  30. (1 other version)The Non-identity Problem and the Psychological Account of Personal Identity.Bruce P. Blackshaw - 2021 - Philosophia (2):1-12.
    According to the psychological account of personal identity, our identity is based on the continuity of psychological connections, and so we do not begin to exist until these are possible, some months after conception. This entails the psychological account faces a challenge from the non-identity problem—our intuition that someone cannot be harmed by actions that are responsible for their existence, even if these actions seem clearly to cause them harm. It is usually discussed with regard to preconception harms, but in (...)
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  31.  68
    Defining life from death: problems with the somatic integration definition of life.Bruce P. Blackshaw & Daniel Rodger - 2020 - Bioethics (5):1-5.
    To determine when the life of a human organism begins, Mark T. Brown has developed the somatic integration definition of life. Derived from diagnostic criteria for human death, Brown’s account requires the presence of a life‐regulation internal control system for an entity to be considered a living organism. According to Brown, the earliest point at which a developing human could satisfy this requirement is at the beginning of the fetal stage, and so the embryo is not regarded as a living (...)
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  32.  41
    No conscientious objection without normative justification: A reply.Bruce P. Blackshaw - 2019 - Bioethics 33 (4):522-523.
    Benjamin Zolf, in his recent paper ‘No conscientious objection without normative justification: Against conscientious objection in medicine’, attempts to establish that in order to rule out arbitrary conscientious objections, a reasonability constraint is necessary. This, he contends, requires normative justification, and the subjective beliefs that ground conscientious objections cannot easily be judged by normative criteria. Zolf shows that the alternative of using extrinsic criteria, such as requiring that unjustified harm must not be caused, are likewise grounded on normative criteria. He (...)
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  33. An introduction to ethical theory for healthcare assistants.Daniel Rodger & Bruce P. Blackshaw - 2017 - British Journal of Healthcare Assistants 11 (11):556-561.
    This article will explore and summarise the four main ethical theories that have relevance for healthcare assistants. These are utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics, and principlism. Understanding different ethical theories can have a number of significant benefits, which have the potential to shape and inform the care of patients, challenge bad practice and lead staff to become better informed about areas of moral disagreement.
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  34.  75
    Why arguments against infanticide remain convincing: A reply to Räsänen.Daniel Rodger, Bruce P. Blackshaw & Clinton Wilcox - 2018 - Bioethics 32 (3):215-219.
    In ‘Pro-life arguments against infanticide and why they are not convincing’ Joona Räsänen argues that Christopher Kaczor's objections to Giubilini and Minerva's position on infanticide are not persuasive. We argue that Räsänen's criticism is largely misplaced, and that he has not engaged with Kaczor's strongest arguments against infanticide. We reply to each of Räsänen's criticisms, drawing on the full range of Kaczor's arguments, as well as adding some of our own.
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  35. Why a right to life rules out infanticide: A final reply to Räsänen.Bruce P. Blackshaw & Daniel Rodger - 2019 - Bioethics 33 (8):965-967.
    Joona Räsänen has argued that pro‐life arguments against the permissibility of infanticide are not persuasive, and fail to show it to be immoral. We responded to Räsänen’s arguments, concluding that his critique of pro‐life arguments was misplaced. Räsänen has recently replied in ‘Why pro‐life arguments still are not convincing: A reply to my critics’, providing some additional arguments as to why he does not find pro‐life arguments against infanticide convincing. Here, we respond briefly to Räsänen’s critique of the substance view, (...)
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  36.  77
    Does the Identity Objection to the future‐like‐ours argument succeed?Bruce P. Blackshaw - 2019 - Bioethics 34 (2):203-206.
    Eric Vogelstein has defended Don Marquis’ ‘future-like-ours’ argument for the immorality of abortion against what is known as the Identity Objection, which contends that for a fetus to have a future like ours, it must be numerically identical to an entity like us that possesses valuable experiences some time in the future. On psychological accounts of personal identity, there is no identity relationship between the fetus and the entity with valuable experiences that it will become. Vogelstein maintains that a non‐sentient (...)
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  37. Public health ethics and abortion: A response to Simkulet.Bruce P. Blackshaw & Daniel Rodger - 2021 - Bioethics 36 (4):469-471.
    Bioethics, Volume 36, Issue 4, Page 469-471, May 2022.
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  38. Responding to objections to gatekeeping for hormone replacement therapy.Toni C. Saad, Daniel Rodger & Bruce Philip Blackshaw - 2019 - Journal of Medical Ethics 45 (12):828-829.
    Florence Ashley has responded to our response to ‘Gatekeeping hormone replacement therapy for transgender patients is dehumanising.’ Ashley criticises some of our objections to their view that patients seeking hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for gender dysphoria should not have to undergo a prior psychological assessment. Here we clarify our objections, most importantly that concerning the parity between cosmetic surgery and the sort of intervention Ashley has in mind. Firstly, we show Ashley’s criticism of our comparison is insubstantial. We then examine (...)
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  39. Why we should not extend the 14-day rule.Bruce Philip Blackshaw & Daniel Rodger - 2021 - Journal of Medical Ethics (10):712-714.
    The 14-day rule restricts the culturing of human embryos in vitro for the purposes of scientific research for no longer than 14 days. Since researchers recently developed the capability to exceed the 14-day limit, pressure to modify the rule has started to build. Sophia McCully argues that the limit should be extended to 28 days, listing numerous potential benefits of doing so. We contend that McCully has not engaged with the main reasons why the Warnock Committee set such a limit, (...)
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  40. Genetic Selective Abortion: Still a Matter of Choice.Bruce P. Blackshaw - 2020 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 23 (2):445-455.
    Jeremy Williams has argued that if we are committed to a liberal pro-choice stance with regard to selective abortion for disability, we will be unable to justify the prohibition of sex selective abortion. Here, I apply his reasoning to selective abortion based on other traits pregnant women may decide are undesirable. These include susceptibility to disease, level of intelligence, physical appearance, sexual orientation, religious belief and criminality—in fact any traits attributable to some degree to a genetic component. Firstly, I review (...)
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  41.  25
    A reply to Gillham on the impairment principle.Bruce P. Blackshaw - 2024 - Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 27 (1):31-35.
    The impairment argument claims that abortion is immoral, because it results in a greater impairment to a fetus than other actions that are clearly immoral, such as inflicting fetal alcohol syndrome. Alex Gillham argues that the argument requires clarification of the meaning of greater impairment. He proposes two definitions, and points out the difficulties with each. In response, I argue that while the impairment argument’s definition of greater impairment is narrow in scope, it is sufficient for its intended purpose. Broadening (...)
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  42. Schrödinger’s fetus examined.Bruce P. Blackshaw - 2019 - Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy:1-3.
    Joona Räsänen has proposed a concept he calls Schrödinger’s Fetus as a solution to reconciling what he believes are two widely held but contradictory intuitions. I show that Elizabeth Harman’s Actual Future Principle, upon which Schrödinger’s Fetus is based, uses a more convincing account of personhood. I also argue that both Räsänen and Harman, by embracing animalism, weaken their arguments by allowing Don Marquis’ ‘future like ours’ argument for the immorality of abortion into the frame.
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  43.  36
    (1 other version)Legal punishment, abortion and the substance view.Bruce P. Blackshaw - 2019 - The New Bioethics (3):1-3.
    A response to Henrik Friberg-Fernros' commentary on ‘The Ethics of Killing: Strengthening the Substance View with Time-relative Interests’.
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  44.  20
    2084: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity. By John Lennox. [REVIEW]Bruce Philip Blackshaw - 2024 - The New Bioethics 1:1-2.
    John Lennox published 2084 in 2020, several years prior to the unveiling of OpenAI’s ChatGPT to the world in November 2022. ChatGPT and its rivals such as Google’s Gemini displayed astonishing capa...
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  45.  74
    (1 other version)Human Embryos, Human Beings: A Scientific and Philosophical Approach. [REVIEW]Bruce Philip Blackshaw - 2020 - The New Bioethics 1:1-3.
    A crucial question in reproductive ethics is whether a human being’s life begins at conception – if it does not, it is more difficult to argue that early embryos possess substantial moral status. I...
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  46.  64
    Civil Dialogue on Abortion. [REVIEW]Bruce Philip Blackshaw - 2019 - The New Bioethics 25 (4):377-380.
    Volume 25, Issue 4, December 2019, Page 377-380.
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  47.  28
    Losing our Dignity: How Secularized Medicine is Undermining Fundamental Human Equality. [REVIEW]Bruce Philip Blackshaw - 2022 - The New Bioethics 28 (4):380-382.
    Charles Camosy’s Losing Our Dignity is a concise and disturbing account of how our long held understanding of human equality, largely inherited from Christianity, is gradually being undermined by t...
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