By Kyle van Oosterum. In ‘My body, not my choice: against legalised abortion’, Perry Hendricks offers an intriguing argument that suggests the state can coerce pregnant women into continuing to sustain their fetuses. This argument certainly piqued my interest given the recent overturning of Roe vs. Wade which means that the constitutional right to abortion […]
Category: Abortion
FWIW I had an abortion
By Katherine Valde. FWIW, I had an abortion last year. I did not get my abortion because my life was in danger – as far as I know I could have carried a baby to full term with nothing other than the normal side effects. I did not get my abortion because I couldn’t afford […]
Are we still allowed to teach abortion?
By Ezio Di Nucci. Something “funny” happened to me recently (this was soon after the SCOTUS leak): in reviewing possible changes to our medical ethics curriculum with the team, I made what I thought was the innocent suggestion of including an abortion case study (so far, the only abortion we have been teaching has been […]
Multifetal pregnancy reduction – why would you do it?
By Gregory K Pike. Multifetal Pregnancy Reduction (MFPR) was initially a response to the high incidence of multiples in Assisted Reproductive Technology. It has even been called “an integral fail-safe of infertility practice”. Its goal was, and mostly still is, to improve outcomes by terminating some fetuses in a multiple pregnancy, on the grounds that […]
Backstreet abortion deaths: not as common or preventable as thought
By Calum Miller. One of the foremost arguments for legalising abortion in developing countries attempts to bypass fetal moral status by appealing to practical considerations: 1) banning abortion doesn’t prevent abortions, but 2) it does put women at risk of dangerous backstreet abortions, killing women in large numbers. Since 3) legalising abortion significantly reduces unsafe […]
Against legalized abortion
By Perry Hendricks Suppose while you’re hiking in the mountains, you stumble upon a young infant. The infant is crying and clearly hungry. With no other humans in sight, you’re the only person able to help her (the infant). Fortunately, you have a bottle of milk with you, and you’re able to feed her. Nearly […]
Is it okay to abort just one of the twin fetuses?
By Joona Räsänen Many people believe abortion is morally permissible. Yet many of the same people also believe that if the woman is pregnant with healthy twins, it is morally wrong for her to abort only one of the fetuses. But since we should choose morally permissible acts instead of impermissible ones, it implies that […]
Where’s the evidence for prolife hypocrisy?
By Bruce Blackshaw, Nicholas Colgrove, Daniel Rodger. We recently published a paper entitled ‘Prolife hypocrisy: why inconsistency arguments do not matter’, which we discuss in this blog post. The paper was a general defence against inconsistency arguments: Arguments that claim prolifers only care about fetuses, not X, where X is anything critics think is worth […]
The Unconscious Violinist – 50 Years On
By Matthew John Minehan. 2021 marks 50 years since the publication of Judith Jarvis Thomson’s seminal paper, ‘A defense of abortion’, in which she introduced the world to a very famous and very unconscious violinist. It also marks mere months since Thomson’s passing in November 2020. For both these reasons, a fresh look at her […]
The first-year anniversary of the application of telemedicine to early medical abortions in UK
By Ilaria Bertini The 30th of March 2021 marks an year since the UK Government implemented the new guidelines on medical abortion in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Thanks to the use of telemedicine women’s homes have been approved as a class of place for both stages of early medical abortion (EMA up to 10 […]