Defending the impairment argument.

Kyle van Oosterum and Emma Curran have recently argued that the impairment argument against abortion is weak and accomplishes little. They also claim that impairment fails to explain what makes giving a child fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) immoral, which is an important premise of the argument. Here, I explain that the impairment argument is not as weak as they believe.

Abortion policies at the bedside: a response.

Hersey 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.

Inconsistency arguments still do not matter.

William Simkulet has recently criticised Colgrove '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 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 frozen embryos, poverty and spontaneous abortion.

Why we should not extend the 14-day rule.

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.

Strengthened impairment argument does not restate Marquis.

With Perry Hendricks, I recently outlined a strengthened version of the impairment argument (SIA) for the immorality of abortion. Alex Gillham has argued that our use of Don Marquis' deprivation of a 'future-like ours' account entails we were merely restating Marquis' argument for the immorality of abortion. Here, I explain why SIA is more than just a reframing of Marquis.

Prolife hypocrisy: why inconsistency arguments do not matter.

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.

Fine-tuning the impairment argument.

Perry Hendricks' original impairment argument for the immorality of abortion is based on the impairment principle: if impairing an organism to some degree is immoral, then , impairing it to a higher degree is also immoral. Since abortion impairs a fetus to a higher degree than fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) and giving a fetus FAS is immoral, it follows that abortion is immoral. Critics have argued that the is not met for FAS and abortion, and so we proposed the modified impairment principle (MIP) to avoid these difficulties.

Gestaticide: killing the subject of the artificial womb.

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 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 the gestateling is completely independent of its biological parents.

Strengthening the impairment argument against abortion.

Perry Hendricks' for the immorality of abortion is based on two premises: first, impairing a fetus with fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) is immoral, and second, if impairing an organism to some degree is immoral, then impairing it to a higher degree is also immoral. He calls this (TIP). Since abortion impairs a fetus to a higher degree than FAS, it follows from these two premises that abortion is immoral.

Parental responsibilities and moral status.

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.

Questionable benefits and unavoidable personal beliefs: defending conscientious objection for abortion.

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.

Hormone replacement therapy: informed consent without assessment?

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 (HRT) 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 resembles the model Ashley defends, and that psychological assessment and referral is recognised as an important aspect of such a model.