The paper comments briefly on the recent controversy surrounding the criminal prosecution and con... more The paper comments briefly on the recent controversy surrounding the criminal prosecution and conviction of rogue US abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, for, among other things, the murder of infants born alive. Without contesting the disturbing nature of the crimes committed by Gosnell and his colleagues, it critiques a few ways in which opponents of abortion have sought to use the case as ammunition against the legal provision of abortion, and against the morality of all abortion.
The article considers the objection to a commercial market in living donor organs for transplanta... more The article considers the objection to a commercial market in living donor organs for transplantation on the ground that such a market would be exploitative of the vendors. It examines a key challenge to that objection, to the effect that denying poor people the option to sell an organ is to withhold from them the best that a bad situation has to offer. The article casts serious doubt on this attempt at justifying an organ market, and its philosophical underpinning. Drawing, in part, from the catalogued consequences of a thriving kidney market in some parts of India, it is argued that the justification relies on conditions which are extremely unlikely to obtain, even in a regulated donor market: that organ selling meaningfully improves the material situation of the organ vendor. Far from being axiomatic, both logic and the extant empirical evidence point towards the unlikelihood of such an upshot. Finally, the article considers a few conventional counter-arguments in favour of a permissive stance on organ sales.
The article considers three theses about postabortion regret which seek to illustrate its pertine... more The article considers three theses about postabortion regret which seek to illustrate its pertinence to reasoning about abortion, and which are often deployed, either explicitly or implicitly, to dissuade women out of that reproductive choice. The first is that postabortion regret renders an abortion morally unjustified. The second is that that a relatively high incidence of postabortion regret -compared with a lower incidence of postnatal regret in the relevant comparator field-is good evidence for the moral impermissibility of abortion choice. The third is that high rates of postabortion regret suggest that abortion is not the most prudent or welfare-maximising choice for the woman concerned.
This article critiques the recent House of Lords decision, R(Purdy) v DPP, and explores the wider... more This article critiques the recent House of Lords decision, R(Purdy) v DPP, and explores the wider debate over the legalization of assisted suicide, with particular focus on assistance in 'suicide-tourism'. It proceeds in roughly two parts. In the first part, I seek to make the case that it was not legally necessary for the Lords to order that the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) clarify his longstanding policy of not prosecuting those who compassionately assist loved ones to travel abroad to die. On the purely legal merits of the case, the Lords' hands were not 'tied', so to speak, and I will attempt to show that a closer analysis of the argumentation leading to the decision will expose its errors in this respect. This conclusion will then open up the normative question of whether clarification of the DPP's policy is a progressive development. I suggest that in light of the special practical and ethical considerations at stake, the DPP's previous practice of turning a blind eye to instances of assisted suicide bearing out certain features-whilst not clarifying his policy to this effect-was the most satisfactory one, and that the Lords' decision was hence a retrograde step.
The paper comments briefly on the recent controversy surrounding the criminal prosecution and con... more The paper comments briefly on the recent controversy surrounding the criminal prosecution and conviction of rogue US abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, for, among other things, the murder of infants born alive. Without contesting the disturbing nature of the crimes committed by Gosnell and his colleagues, it critiques a few ways in which opponents of abortion have sought to use the case as ammunition against the legal provision of abortion, and against the morality of all abortion.
The article considers the objection to a commercial market in living donor organs for transplanta... more The article considers the objection to a commercial market in living donor organs for transplantation on the ground that such a market would be exploitative of the vendors. It examines a key challenge to that objection, to the effect that denying poor people the option to sell an organ is to withhold from them the best that a bad situation has to offer. The article casts serious doubt on this attempt at justifying an organ market, and its philosophical underpinning. Drawing, in part, from the catalogued consequences of a thriving kidney market in some parts of India, it is argued that the justification relies on conditions which are extremely unlikely to obtain, even in a regulated donor market: that organ selling meaningfully improves the material situation of the organ vendor. Far from being axiomatic, both logic and the extant empirical evidence point towards the unlikelihood of such an upshot. Finally, the article considers a few conventional counter-arguments in favour of a permissive stance on organ sales.
The article considers three theses about postabortion regret which seek to illustrate its pertine... more The article considers three theses about postabortion regret which seek to illustrate its pertinence to reasoning about abortion, and which are often deployed, either explicitly or implicitly, to dissuade women out of that reproductive choice. The first is that postabortion regret renders an abortion morally unjustified. The second is that that a relatively high incidence of postabortion regret -compared with a lower incidence of postnatal regret in the relevant comparator field-is good evidence for the moral impermissibility of abortion choice. The third is that high rates of postabortion regret suggest that abortion is not the most prudent or welfare-maximising choice for the woman concerned.
This article critiques the recent House of Lords decision, R(Purdy) v DPP, and explores the wider... more This article critiques the recent House of Lords decision, R(Purdy) v DPP, and explores the wider debate over the legalization of assisted suicide, with particular focus on assistance in 'suicide-tourism'. It proceeds in roughly two parts. In the first part, I seek to make the case that it was not legally necessary for the Lords to order that the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) clarify his longstanding policy of not prosecuting those who compassionately assist loved ones to travel abroad to die. On the purely legal merits of the case, the Lords' hands were not 'tied', so to speak, and I will attempt to show that a closer analysis of the argumentation leading to the decision will expose its errors in this respect. This conclusion will then open up the normative question of whether clarification of the DPP's policy is a progressive development. I suggest that in light of the special practical and ethical considerations at stake, the DPP's previous practice of turning a blind eye to instances of assisted suicide bearing out certain features-whilst not clarifying his policy to this effect-was the most satisfactory one, and that the Lords' decision was hence a retrograde step.
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