Today’s blast of righteous indignation is directed towards New Mexico. House Bill 206 says, in essence, that… well, it’s short, so here it is in full: HOUSE BILL 206 51ST LEGISLATURE – STATE OF NEW MEXICO – FIRST SESSION, 2013 INTRODUCED BY Cathrynn N. Brown AN ACT RELATING TO CRIMINAL LAW; SPECIFYING PROCURING OF AN ABORTION AS TAMPERING WITH EVIDENCE IN CASES […]
Category: Reproduction
Double Effect in the Halappanavar Case
In the wake of Savita Halappanavar’s death, a statement was issued by the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference. The whole thing is available here. However, I think that a couple of paragraphs is particularly worth picking out: Where a seriously ill pregnant woman needs medical treatment which may put the life of her baby at risk, such […]
All Right, Peter: I’ll Bite
Over at the CMF blog, Peter Saunders has a slightly peculiar post. He begins by criticising Today programme presenters for not being hard enough with someone whose husband had gone to Dignitas; but then turns his attention – via a jibe at the rights made-to-order all-purpose bogey man, the “liberal elite” – to what he calls […]
Mouse Eggs: A Cool Solution to a First-World Problem?
The news that Japanese researchers have successfully induced skin cells to behave like viable eggs, which have then been fertilised to create a new generation of mice, may well come to be seen as a scientific milestone. And if it’s not that, it’s definitely very, very cool. (The original paper is here.) Though the research […]
IVF and Birth Defects: Is there a Moral Problem?
It was reported a couple of weeks ago that researchers had found a link between certain forms of assisted conception and an increased risk of birth defects. The paper, published in the NEJM, suggested that ICSI (intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection) correlated with defets in just about 10% of births. The base rate is about 5.8%, rising […]
The benefits of contraception?
By David Hunter The government in New Zealand is proposing to spend $1 million of funding for women on a benefit and their teenage daughters to get long-term reversible contraception – such as an implant. Advice on accessing this treatment and its implications will be provided by case workers in the Social Services. The NZ […]
How Abortion Law Works in Texas
Remember a little while ago there was a rash of proposals in the US that’d force women to see a sonogram of the foetus, or to listen to detailed descriptions of it, before having an abortion? Yeah: them. Well, via Ophelia, here’s an account of what really happens. Halfway through my pregnancy, I learned that […]
Workshop: The Baby Gaga Saga: Regulation of Human Products and the Politics of Breastfeeding
Posted on behalf of Sorcha Uí Chonnachtaigh. All are welcome to our multi-disciplinary workshop on the regulation of human breast milk and the ethics and politics of breastfeeding! Please circulate the programme and information below to anyone who may be interested. […]
Some Responses to Giubilini and Minerva
I did mention last week that I’d post links to sites that mentioned Giubilini and Minerva’s paper as they crossed my radar; but it turned out very quickly that there’d be no way to keep up. And, to be frank, a lot of the blogosphere’s response has been fairly scattergun outrage rather than dispassionate engagement […]
An open letter from Giubilini and Minerva
When we decided to write this article about after-birth abortion we had no idea that our paper would raise such a heated debate. “Why not? You should have known!” people keep on repeating everywhere on the web. The answer is very simple: the article was supposed to be read by other fellow bioethicists who were […]