A reply to Gillham on the impairment principle.

The impairment argument claims that abortion is immoral, because it results in a greater impairment to a fetus than other actions that are clearly immoral, such as inflicting fetal alcohol syndrome. Alex Gillham argues that the argument requires clarification of the meaning of greater impairment. He proposes two definitions, and points out the difficulties with each. In response, I argue that while the impairment argument's definition of greater impairment is narrow in scope, it is sufficient for its intended purpose. Broadening its scope to more controversial comparisons of impairment is likely to undermine the intuitive appeal of the impairment principle that the argument is based upon.

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. Further, I argue that impairment offers a superior explanation for what makes giving a child FAS immoral than their proposal based on creative beneficence.

Abortion policies at the bedside: a response.

Hersey et al 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. Consequently, the conclusions obtained from their framework are also derived from their individual beliefs, and have no claim to being objective.

Why inconsistency arguments fail: a response to Shaw.

Opponents of abortion are commonly said to be inconsistent in their beliefs or actions, and to fail in their obligations to prevent the deaths of embryos and fetuses from causes other than induced abortion. We have argued that these 'inconsistency arguments' conform to a pattern which is susceptible to a number of objections, and that consequently they fail en masse. In response, Joshua Shaw argues that we misrepresent inconsistency arguments, and that we underestimate the extent to which our opponents have anticipated and addressed counterarguments. In this essay we draw on aspects of Shaw's alternative formulation of inconsistency arguments to present an improved inconsistency argument structure. While we agree with Shaw that inconsistency arguments must each be examined on their merits, we reject Shaw's assertion that our objections are dependent on misrepresentations. Our initial objections remain largely successful, therefore, in dealing with the inconsistency arguments of which we are aware.

COVID-19 Vaccination Should not be Mandatory for Health and Social Care Workers.

A COVID-19 vaccine mandate is being introduced for health and social care workers in England, and those refusing to comply will either be redeployed or have their employment terminated. We argue that COVID-19 vaccination should not be mandatory for these workers for several reasons. First, it ignores their genuine concerns, and fails to respect their moral integrity and bodily autonomy. Second, it risks causing psychological reactance, potentially worsening vaccine hesitancy. Third, Black and minority ethnic workers are less likely to have been vaccinated and therefore may be disproportionately impacted by the implications of the mandate. Fourth, a mandate could have a significant negative effect on service provision. Fifth, waning immunity and new variants mean that booster doses are increasingly likely to be regularly required, meaning that what constitutes being 'fully vaccinated' will be a constantly shifting target. Finally, vaccine mandates may have an adverse effect on health and social care recruitment. We argue that daily rapid antigen testing is a viable alternative to a vaccine mandate that is non-coercive and fair. This could also be supplemented by monetary incentives to be vaccinated.

Inconsistency arguments still do not matter.

William Simkulet has recently criticised Colgrove et al'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 et al 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. Thus, they are morally negligent. In response, we argue that Simkulet has targeted a very narrow group of OAs, and so his criticisms are inapplicable to most OAs. We then explain why his responses to each of Colgrove et al's objections do not succeed, even for this restricted group. Finally, we note that Simkulet fails to provide evidence for his claims regarding OAs' supposed failures to act, and we show that OAs veritably do invest resources into these important issues. We conclude that Colgrove et al's reasons for rejecting inconsistency arguments (en masse) remain intact.

Can prolife theorists justify an exception for rape?

Prolife theorists typically hold to the claim that all human beings possess equal moral status from conception and consequently possess a right to life. This, they believe, entails that abortion is impermissible in all circumstances. Critics characterize this as an extreme anti-abortion position, as it prima facie allows no exceptions, even in cases of rape. Here, I examine whether the prolife claim regarding equal moral status is compatible with a more attractive moderate stance that permits an exception in the case of rape. I show that Judith Jarvis Thomson's analysis of rights can be used to modify the prolife position in this way, but that doing so involves concessions that prolife theorists are unlikely to find acceptable.

Defending the substance view against its critics.

Recently, the substance view of persons has been heavily criticized for the counterintuitive conclusions it seems to imply in scenarios such as embryo rescue cases and embryo loss. These criticisms have obscured the considerable success of the substance view in supporting other intuitions that are widely shared, and that competing accounts such as the psychological view have difficulties accounting for. Here, I examine common intuitions regarding identity, human exceptionalism, the moral equality of children and adults, infanticide, and prenatal injury. I conclude that when we broaden the range of intuitions examined, the substance view emerges as just as plausible an account of our nature as the more widely accepted psychological view.

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. We contend that McCully has not engaged with the main reasons why the Warnock Committee set such a limit, and these still remain valid. As a result, her case for an extension of the 14-day rule is not persuasive.

If fetuses are persons, abortion is a public health crisis.

Pro-life advocates commonly argue that fetuses have the moral status of persons, and an accompanying right to life, a view most pro-choice advocates deny. A difficulty for this pro-life position has been Judith Jarvis Thomson's violinist analogy, in which she argues that even if the fetus is a person, abortion is often permissible because a pregnant woman is not obliged to continue to offer her body as life support. Here, we outline the moral theories underlying public health ethics, and examine the COVID-19 pandemic as an example of public health considerations overriding individual rights. We argue that if fetuses are regarded as persons, then abortion is of such prevalence in society that it also constitutes a significant public health crisis. We show that on public health considerations, we are justified in overriding individual rights to bodily autonomy by prohibiting abortion. We conclude that in a society that values public health, abortion can only be tolerated if fetuses are not regarded as persons.

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.

Quotas: Enabling Conscientious Objection to Coexist with Abortion Access.

The debate regarding the role of conscientious objection in healthcare has been protracted, with increasing demands for curbs on conscientious objection. There is a growing body of evidence that indicates that in some cases, high rates of conscientious objection can affect access to legal medical services such as abortion-a major concern of critics of conscientious objection. Moreover, few solutions have been put forward that aim to satisfy both this concern and that of defenders of conscientious objection-being expected to participate in the provision of services that compromise their moral integrity. Here we attempt to bring some resolution to the debate by proposing a pragmatic, long-term solution offering what we believe to be an acceptable compromise-a quota system for medical trainees in specialties where a conscientious objection can be exercised, and is known to cause conflict. We envisage two main objectives of the quota system we propose. First, as a means to introduce conscientious objection into countries where this is not presently permitted. Second, to minimise or eliminate the effects of high rates of conscientious objection in countries such as Italy, where access to legal abortion provision can be negatively affected.

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 ceteris paribus, 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 ceteris paribus is not met for FAS and abortion, and so we proposed the modified impairment principle (MIP) to avoid these difficulties. Dustin Crummett has responded, arguing that MIP is open to various counterexamples which show it to be false. He also shows that MIP can generate moral dilemmas. Here, we propose a modification to MIP that resolves the issues Crummett raises. Additionally, Alex Gillham has criticised our appropriation of Don Marquis' 'future like ours' reasoning about the wrongness of impairment. We show that his objections have minimal implications for our argument.

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. Each specifies what consistent opponents of abortion would do (or believe), asserts that they fail to act (or believe) accordingly and concludes that they are inconsistent. Here, we show that inconsistency arguments fail en masse. In short, inconsistency arguments typically face four problems. First, they usually fail to account for diversity among opponents of abortion. Second, they rely on inferences about consistency based on isolated beliefs shared by some opponents of abortion (and these inferences often do not survive once we consider other beliefs opponents of abortion tend to hold). Third, inconsistency arguments usually ignore the diverse ways in which opponents of abortion might act on their beliefs. Fourth, inconsistency arguments criticise groups of people without threatening their beliefs (eg, that abortion is immoral). Setting these problems aside, even supposing inconsistency arguments are successful, they hardly matter. In fact, in the two best-case scenarios-where inconsistency arguments succeed-they either encourage millions of people to make the world a (much) worse place (from the critic's perspective) or promote epistemically and morally irresponsible practices. We conclude that a more valuable discussion would be had by focusing on the arguments made by opponents of abortion rather than opponents themselves.

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 gestaticide 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. Second, we argue that gestaticide is morally equivalent to infanticide. To demonstrate this, we explain that gestatelings are born in a straightforward sense, which entails that killing them is as morally serious as infanticide. However, to strengthen our overall claim, we also show that if gestatelings are not considered to have been born, killing them is still equivalent to killing neonates with congenital anomalies and disabilities, which again is infanticide. We conclude by considering how our discussion of gestaticide has implications for the permissibility of withdrawing life-sustaining treatment from gestatelings.