I offer a response to an objection to my account of the moral difference between fetuses and newborns, an account that seeks to address an analogy between abortion and infanticide which is based on the apparent equality of moral value of fetuses and newborns.

In this paper, I respond to criticisms toward my account of the difference in moral status between fetuses and newborns. I show my critics have not adequately argued for their view that pregnant women participate in a parent-child relationship. While an important counterexample is raised against my account, this counterexample had already been dealt with in my original paper. Because the criticisms against my account lack argumentative support, they do not pose a problem for my account. I conclude the raised (...) criticisms do not amount to a strong philosophical case against my account. (shrink)

Some responses to analogies between abortion and infanticide appeal to Judith Jarvis Thomson's argument for the permissibility of abortion. I argue that these responses fail because a parallel argument can be constructed for the permissibility of infanticide. However, an argument on the grounds of a right to choose to become a parent can maintain that abortion is permissible but infanticide is not by recognizing the normative significance and nature of parenthood. -/- Certaines réponses aux analogies entre l'avortement et l'infanticide font (...) appel à l'argument de Judith Jarvis Thomson en faveur de la licéité morale de l'avortement pour désamorcer ces analogies. Je soutiens que ces réponses échouent parce qu'un argument parallèle peut être construit en faveur de la licéité de l'infanticide. Cependant, un argument reposant sur le droit de choisir de devenir parent permet de soutenir que l'avortement est autorisé mais que l'infanticide ne l'est pas en reconnaissant le sens et la nature normatifs de la parentalité. (shrink)

Throughout most of human history women have been defined by their biological role in reproduction, seen first and foremost as gestators, which has led to the reproductive system being subjected to outside interference. The womb was perceived as dangerous and an object which husbands, doctors and the state had a legitimate interest in controlling. In this article, we consider how notions of conflict surrounding the womb have endured over time. We demonstrate how concerns seemingly generated by the invisibility of reproduction (...) and the inaccessibility of the womb have translated into similar arguments for controlling women, as technology increases the accessibility of the female body and the womb. Developments in reproductive medicine, from in vitro fertilisation to surrogacy, have enabled women and men who would otherwise have been childless to become parents. Uterus transplants and ‘artificial wombs’ could provide additional alternatives to natural gestation. An era of ‘womb technology’ dawns. Some argue that such technology providing an alternative to ‘natural’ gestation could be a source of liberation for female persons because reproduction will no longer be something necessarily confined to the female body. ‘Womb technology’, however, also has the potential to exacerbate the labelling of the female body as a source of danger and an ‘imperfect’ site of gestation, thus replaying rudimentary and regressive arguments about controlling female behaviour. We argue that pernicious narratives about control, conflict and the womb must be addressed in the face of these technological developments. (shrink)

A large body of literature considers the ethico-legal and regulatory issues surrounding assisted conception. Surrogacy, however, within this body of literature is an odd-fit. It involves a unique demand of another person—a form of reproductive labour—that many other aspects of assisted conception, such as gamete donation do not involve. Surrogacy is a form of assisted gestation. The potential alternatives for individuals who want a genetically related child but who do not have the capacity to gestate are ever increasing: with the (...) advent of uterus transplantation, and the anticipated development of artificial placentas.In this paper, I highlight the pertinent conceptual differences between technologies assisting conception and those assisting gestation to demonstrate that distinct issues arise when assisted gestative technologies are used. I argue that there is utility in considering AGTs as a genus of technologies. These technologies perform the same function from the perspective of putative parents and might exist on a spectrum of alternatives when they become more available. Moreover, since many of the same or very similar ethical, social and legal issues are raised by surrogacy, UTx and ectogestation, analysis of these issues will be better contextualised by considering these technologies together. Many of the matters currently being highlighted for reform in the context of surrogacy will inevitably impact on how other forms of assisted gestation are governed. The conversation should be broadened; we should consider how far other emerging technologies might be accommodated in revised regulatory schemes. (shrink)

In ‘Dilemma for Appeals to the Moral Significance of Birth’, we argued that a dilemma is faced by those who believe that birth is the event at which infanticide is ruled out. Those who reject the moral permissibility of infanticide by appeal to the moral significance of birth must either accept the moral permissibility of a late-term abortion for a non-therapeutic reason or not. If they accept it, they need to account for the strong intuition that her decision is wrong (...) as well as deny the underlying normative principle that killing a viable fetus requires good reason, and not wanting to care for the child when the child could be easily placed for adoption is not a good enough reason to abort. If they reject the moral permissibility of the late-term abortion, they need to explain why her decision is wrong. Doing so, however, will undermine their own project of denying infanticide by appeal to birth. Walter Veit argues that the dilemma relies too much on intuition and does not live up to biological continuity. We explain why his criticisms are unconvincing. (shrink)

Prabhpal Singh has defended a relational account of the difference in moral status between fetuses and newborns. Newborns stand in the parent-child relation while fetuses do not, and standing in the parent-child relationship brings with it higher moral status for newborns. Orphans pose a problem for this account because they do not stand in a parent-child relationship. I argue that Singh has not satisfactorily responded to the problem.

Giubilini and Minerva argue that the permissibility of abortion entails the permissibility of infanticide. Proponents of what we refer to as the Birth Strategy claim that there is a morally significant difference brought about at birth that accounts for our strong intuition that killing newborns is morally impermissible. We argue that strategy does not account for the moral intuition that late-term, non-therapeutic abortions are morally impermissible. Advocates of the Birth Strategy must either judge non-therapeutic abortions as impermissible in the later (...) stages of pregnancy or conclude that they are permissible on the basis of premises that are far less intuitively plausible than the opposite conclusion and its supporting premises. (shrink)

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...

I provide an updated version of The Impairment Argument against abortion and respond to numerous objections that can be (and have been) raised to it.