By Bruce Blackshaw and Daniel Rodger It is widely recognised that late-term fetuses and infants differ little in features that are thought to be morally relevant such as consciousness and rationality. This poses a problem for ethicists who argue for the permissibility of abortion but wish to rule out infanticide. Some just bite the bullet—Alberto […]
Category: Abortion
Fetal pain and abortion
By Stuart WG Derbyshire and John C Bockmann. In the early 1990s new techniques for fetal surgery emerged and a group working at Queen Charlotte’s Hospital were posed a question by their pregnant patients that they had not previously considered: will it hurt the fetus when you inject it? Obviously the surgeons could not ask […]
Birth and “Birth”: Why Human Subjects in Artificial Wombs Should be Treated as Neonates
By Nick Colgrove. Recently, I argued that human subjects in artificial wombs are newborns (or, at least, should be treated as newborns). This is because the subject of partial ectogenesis—which has been extracted from a pregnant woman’s body and placed in an artificial womb—is a newborn, full stop. The subject of complete ectogenesis—which is created […]
Halfway Home? Accessing Abortion in Northern Ireland
By Nathan Emmerich. On the 21st of October 2019 abortion was effectively decriminalized in Northern Ireland (NI). Prior to this abortion was illegal in NI, including in cases of fatal fetal abnormalities or when conception resulted from rape or incest. Furthermore, whether or not the risks posed to the mother of continuing a pregnancy justified […]