Emotional support animals are not like prosthetics: a response to Sara Kolmes.

Sara Kolmes has argued that the human 'handlers' of emotional support animals (ESAs) should have the sorts of body-like rights to those animals that people with prosthetics have to their prosthetics. In support of this conclusion, she argues that ESAs both function and feel like prosthetics, and that the disanalogies between ESAs and prosthetics are irrelevant to whether humans can have body-like rights to their ESAs. In response, we argue that Ms Kolmes has failed to show that ESAs are body-like in the ways that paradigmatic prostheses are and that, even if they were, these similarities would be outweighed by a crucial dissimilarity that she underestimates.

Rape and the Straw Man: A Response to Lindsay Kelland.

Lindsay Kelland has taken issue with a claim I made in a book titled The Second Sexism: Discrimination Against Men and Boys. In response to this claim, she has argued that when a woman is raped, it matters that her rapist is a male because "her situation as a woman under patriarchy is partly constitutive of the harm that she suffers" in being raped. In my response to her article, I show that she has taken my claim out of context and thereby misrepresented it.

From medical manners to moral reasoning: an historical overview of bioethics in the University of Cape Town's Faculty of Health Sciences.

The history of bioethics in the Faculty of Health Sciences of the University of Cape Town (UCT) follows a similar pattern to elsewhere. At first, bioethics received little formal attention, but there has been a flowering of interest over the last few decades. There has also been a shift from a professionally insular view of bioethics to one informed by non-medical disciplines.

Grim news from the original position: a reply to Professor Doyal.

In his review of my book, Better never to have been, Len Doyal suggests, contrary to my view, that rational beings in the original position might prefer coming into existence to the alternative of never existing, if their lives were to include enough good and not too much bad. I argue, in response, that Professor Doyal fails to make his case.

Reproductive freedom and risk.

It is widely recognized that one person's freedom may be limited to prevent harm to another (non-consenting) person. It is curious, therefore, that where a right to reproductive freedom is recognized, there is considerable reticence to limit or override it in cases where reproduction harms those people who are brought into existence. I argue that this is inappropriate.

The trouble with universal declarations.

A number of problems plague universal declarations. To the extent that those drafting and adopting the declaration represent a range of different views, consensus can only be obtained if the declaration makes minimalist claims that all can support, or makes claims that are vague enough that they can be interpreted to everybody's satisfaction. To the extent that a universal declaration avoids these problems, and takes an unequivocal and controversial stand, it does so by privileging the view that is hegemonic (at least among those responsible for the declaration).

Between prophylaxis and child abuse: the ethics of neonatal male circumcision.

Opinion about neonatal male circumcision is deeply divided. Some take it to be a prophylactic measure with unequivocal and significant health benefits, while others consider it a form of child abuse. We argue against both these polar views.