BioethicsPub Date : 2024-03-22DOI: 10.1111/bioe.13282
Dorian Accoe, Guido Pennings
{"title":"Navigating conflicts of reproductive rights: Unbundling parenthood and balancing competing interests","authors":"Dorian Accoe, Guido Pennings","doi":"10.1111/bioe.13282","DOIUrl":"10.1111/bioe.13282","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Advances in assisted reproductive technologies can give rise to several ethical challenges. One of these challenges occurs when the reproductive desires of two individuals become incompatible and conflict. To address such conflicts, it is important to unbundle different aspects of (non)parenthood and to recognize the corresponding reproductive rights. This article starts on the premise that the six reproductive rights—the right (not) to be a gestational, genetic, and social parent—are negative rights that do not entail a right to assistance. Since terminating or continuing a pregnancy is a form of assistance, the right (not) to be a gestational parent should enjoy primacy in conflicts. However, while refusing assistance may hinder the reproductive project of another person, “prior assistance” does not entitle someone to violate a reproductive right. Therefore, our analysis provides reasons to argue that someone has a right to unilaterally use cryopreserved embryos or continue the development of an entity in an extracorporeal gestative environment (i.e., ectogestation). Although this could lead to a violation of the right not to be a genetic parent, it does not necessarily entail a violation of the right not to be a social parent.</p>","PeriodicalId":55379,"journal":{"name":"Bioethics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-03-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140190442","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
BioethicsPub Date : 2024-03-22DOI: 10.1111/bioe.13285
Ryan Kulesa, Alberto Giubilini
{"title":"Conscientious refusal or conscientious provision: We can't have both","authors":"Ryan Kulesa, Alberto Giubilini","doi":"10.1111/bioe.13285","DOIUrl":"10.1111/bioe.13285","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Some authors argue that it is permissible for clinicians to <i>conscientiously provide</i> abortion services because clinicians are already allowed to <i>conscientiously refuse</i> to provide certain services. Call this the symmetry thesis. We argue that on either of the two main understandings of the aim of the medical profession—what we will call “pathocentric” and “interest-centric” views—conscientious refusal and conscientious provision are mutually exclusive. On pathocentric views, refusing to provide a service that takes away from a patient's health is professionally justified because there are compelling reasons, based on professional standards, to refuse to provide that service (e.g., it does not heal, and it is contrary to the goals of medicine). However, providing that same service is not professionally justified when providing that service would be contrary to the goals of medicine. Likewise, the thesis turns out false on interest-centric views. Refusing to provide a service is not professionally justified when that service helps the patient fulfill her autonomous preferences because there are compelling reasons, based on professional standards, to provide that service (e.g., it helps her achieve her autonomous preferences, and it would be contrary to the goals of medicine to deny her that service). However, refusing to provide that same service is not professionally justified when refusing to provide that service would be contrary to the goals of medicine. As a result, on either of the two most plausible views on the goals of medicine, the symmetry thesis turns out false.</p>","PeriodicalId":55379,"journal":{"name":"Bioethics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-03-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/bioe.13285","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140190441","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
BioethicsPub Date : 2024-03-12DOI: 10.1111/bioe.13280
Catherine Clune-Taylor
{"title":"Arguments for a ban on pediatric intersex surgery: A dis/analogy with Jehovah witness blood transfusion","authors":"Catherine Clune-Taylor","doi":"10.1111/bioe.13280","DOIUrl":"10.1111/bioe.13280","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article argues for a ban on the performance of medically unnecessary genital normalizing surgeries as part of assigning a binary sex/gender to infants with intersex conditions on the basis of autonomy, regardless of etiology. It does this via a dis/analogy with the classic case in bioethics of Jehovah Witness (JW) parents' inability to refuse life-saving blood transfusions for their minor children. Both cases address ethical medical practice in situations where parents are making irreversible medical decisions on the basis of values strongly held, identity, and relationship-shaping values—such as religious beliefs or beliefs regarding the inherent value of binary sex/gender—amidst ethical pluralism. Furthermore, it takes seriously—as we must in the intersex case—that the restriction of parents' right to choose will likely result in serious harms to potentially large percentage of patients, their families, and their larger communities. I address the objection that parents' capacity to choose is restricted in the JW case on the basis of the harm principle or a duty to nonmaleficence, given that the result of parent choice would be death. I provide evidence that this is mistaken from how we treat epistemic uncertainty in the JW case and from cases in which clinicians are ethically obligated to restrict the autonomy of nonminor patients. I conclude that we restrict the parents' right to choose in the JW case—and should in the case of pediatric intersex surgery—to secure patient's <i>future autonomy</i>.</p>","PeriodicalId":55379,"journal":{"name":"Bioethics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/bioe.13280","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140102912","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
BioethicsPub Date : 2024-03-11DOI: 10.1111/bioe.13279
Travis Quigley
{"title":"Why restrict medical effective altruism?","authors":"Travis Quigley","doi":"10.1111/bioe.13279","DOIUrl":"10.1111/bioe.13279","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In a challenge trial, research subjects are purposefully exposed to some pathogen in a controlled setting, in order to test the efficacy of a vaccine or other experimental treatment. This is an example of medical effective altruism (MEA), where individuals volunteer to risk harms for the public good. Many bioethicists rejected challenge trials in the context of Covid-19 vaccine research on ethical grounds. After considering various grounds of this objection, I conclude that the crucial question is how much harm research subjects can permissibly risk. But we lack a satisfying way of making this judgment that does not appeal simply to the intuitions of doctors or bioethicists. I consider one recent and structurally plausible approach to critically evaluating the harm question. Alex London defends a social consistency test for research risks: we should compare the risks undertaken by research subjects to relevantly similar risks which are accepted in other spheres of society. I argue there is no good reason not to consider volunteer military service as a relevant social comparison. This implies there is essentially no cap on acceptable risks on the social consistency rationale. In short, if soldiers can be heroes, why can't research volunteers?</p>","PeriodicalId":55379,"journal":{"name":"Bioethics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140095131","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
BioethicsPub Date : 2024-03-08DOI: 10.1111/bioe.13278
{"title":"Corrigendum to: Attitudes, intentions and procreative responsibility in current and future assisted reproduction","authors":"","doi":"10.1111/bioe.13278","DOIUrl":"10.1111/bioe.13278","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Battisti, D. (2023). Attitudes, intentions and procreative responsibility in current and future assisted reproduction. <i>Bioethics, 37</i>(5), 449–461. https://doi.org/10.1111/bioe.13150.</p><p>The name ‘McDougall’ is incorrectly spelled as ‘McDougal’ on pages 453 and 454.</p><p>The phrase ‘focus-agent focus’ on page 454 is incorrect and should read ‘future-agent focus’.</p><p>The part of the sentence \"implies the prospective parents\" should be replaced with \"commits\", and the word \"have\" in the same sentence should be replaced with \"having\". This sentence should read: \"Considering this, we can recognize that the parent-child relationship argument commits procreators to having attitudes and intentions that are not in contrast with the desires and hopes that their children's lives go well and that they are safe from suffering\" paragraph 4, page 456.</p><p>The word ‘having’ should be replaced with ‘parenting’ in the final paragraph of page 455. This sentence should read: ‘On the one hand, the distinction between creating and parenting a child enables us to justify the fact that the beginning of a parent–child relationship is also morally relevant in the procreative context’.</p><p>The word ‘having’ should be replaced with ‘creating’ on the first line of page 456. This sentence should read: ‘To explain the moral relevance of the distinction between creating and parenting a child let us consider again the example of the couple that, through PGD plus IVF, deliberately select a child with a disability D’.</p>","PeriodicalId":55379,"journal":{"name":"Bioethics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/bioe.13278","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140066278","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
BioethicsPub Date : 2024-03-05DOI: 10.1111/bioe.13276
Caspar W. Safarlou, Annelien L. Bredenoord, Roel Vermeulen, Karin R. Jongsma
{"title":"Nature-versus-nurture considered harmful: Actionability as an alternative tool for understanding the exposome from an ethical perspective","authors":"Caspar W. Safarlou, Annelien L. Bredenoord, Roel Vermeulen, Karin R. Jongsma","doi":"10.1111/bioe.13276","DOIUrl":"10.1111/bioe.13276","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Exposome research is put forward as a major tool for solving the nature-versus-nurture debate because the exposome is said to represent “the nature of nurture.” Against this influential idea, we argue that the adoption of the nature-versus-nurture debate into the exposome research program is a mistake that needs to be undone to allow for a proper bioethical assessment of exposome research. We first argue that this adoption is originally based on an equivocation between the traditional nature-versus-nurture debate and a debate about disease prediction/etiology. Second, due to this mistake, exposome research is pushed to adopt a limited conception of agential control that is harmful to one's thinking about the good that exposome research can do for human health and wellbeing. To fully excise the nature-versus-nurture debate from exposome research, we argue that exposome researchers and bioethicists need to think about the exposome afresh from the perspective of actionability. We define the concept of actionability and related concepts and show how these can be used to analyze the ethical aspects of the exposome. In particular, we focus on refuting the popular “gun analogy” in exposome research, returning results to study participants and risk-taking in the context of a well-lived life.</p>","PeriodicalId":55379,"journal":{"name":"Bioethics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-03-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/bioe.13276","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140029633","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
BioethicsPub Date : 2024-02-29DOI: 10.1111/bioe.13277
Daniel Story
{"title":"Cryonics: Traps and transformations","authors":"Daniel Story","doi":"10.1111/bioe.13277","DOIUrl":"10.1111/bioe.13277","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Cryonics is the practice of cryopreserving the bodies or brains of legally dead individuals with the hope that these individuals will be reanimated in the future. A standard argument for cryonics says that cryonics is prudentially justified despite uncertainty about its success because at worst it will leave you no worse off than you otherwise would have been had you not chosen cryonics, and at best it will leave you much better off than you otherwise would have been. Thus, it is a good, no-risk bet; in game-theoretic terms, cryonics is a weakly dominant strategy relative to refraining from utilizing cryonics. I object to this argument for two reasons. First, I argue that there is a practically relevant chance that cryonics will put you into an inescapable and very bad situation. Hence, cryonics is neither a no-risk bet nor a weakly dominant strategy. Second, I argue that the experience of being reanimated and living in the distant future would likely be transformative, and this likelihood undermines your justification for thinking that reanimation would be beneficial to you. I conclude that the standard argument does not show that cryonics is prudentially justified.</p>","PeriodicalId":55379,"journal":{"name":"Bioethics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-02-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139998376","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
BioethicsPub Date : 2024-02-22DOI: 10.1111/bioe.13273
Michael L Gross
{"title":"Treating the innocent victims of trolleys and war.","authors":"Michael L Gross","doi":"10.1111/bioe.13273","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/bioe.13273","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Both trolleys and war leave innocent victims to suffer death and injury. Trolley problems accounting for the injured, and not only the dead, tease out intuitions about liability that enhance our understanding of the obligation to provide compensation and medical care to civilian victims of war. Like many trolley victims, civilians in war may suffer justifiable, excusable, or negligent harms that demand compensation. Chief among these is collateral harm befalling civilians. Collateral harm is endemic to war and comprises permissible but unavoidable death or injury following necessary and proportionate military operations. Although state armies sometimes offer condolence payments for civilian death, injury, and property loss, they deny liability. Instead, they use compensation to enhance counterinsurgency efforts and assuage feelings of agent regret. As part of the medical rules of eligibility, Coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan also provided medical care to victims of collateral harm. However, they denied care to similarly sick or injured civilians. While compensation is often justified to cure the harm civilians suffer, the differential use of medical resources is not. Rather, medical care remains subject to the principle of beneficence and medical need. The duty to provide civilian healthcare in war, particularly in wars of humanitarian intervention, is far-reaching and imposes significant costs that military and medical ethics are yet to recognize.</p>","PeriodicalId":55379,"journal":{"name":"Bioethics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-02-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139934385","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
BioethicsPub Date : 2024-02-21DOI: 10.1111/bioe.13274
Joona Räsänen, Andreas Bengtson, Hugo Cossette-Lefebvre, Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen
{"title":"A critical take on procreative justice","authors":"Joona Räsänen, Andreas Bengtson, Hugo Cossette-Lefebvre, Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen","doi":"10.1111/bioe.13274","DOIUrl":"10.1111/bioe.13274","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Herjeet Kaur Marway recently proposed the Principle of Procreative Justice, which says that reproducers have a strong moral obligation to avoid completing race and colour injustices through their selection choices. In this article, we analyze this principle and argue, appealing to a series of counterexamples, that some of the implications of Marway's Principle of Procreative Justice are difficult to accept. This casts doubt on whether the principle should be adopted. Also, we show that there are some more principled worries regarding Marway's idea of a strong pro tanto duty not to complete injustices through one's procreative choices. Nonetheless, we believe Marway's arguments point in the right general direction regarding duties and structural injustice. Thus, in the final part, we suggest a positive proposal on how it would be possible to respond to the cases we raise. More specifically, we explore the suggestion that agents have a pro tanto duty to participate in eliminating structural injustice. Importantly, this duty can be satisfied, not only in procreation choices but in multiple ways.</p>","PeriodicalId":55379,"journal":{"name":"Bioethics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139934384","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
BioethicsPub Date : 2024-02-17DOI: 10.1111/bioe.13271
Nadja Wolf
{"title":"The role of the concept of solidarity for just distribution of bioethical goods in the international area","authors":"Nadja Wolf","doi":"10.1111/bioe.13271","DOIUrl":"10.1111/bioe.13271","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This analysis investigates whether solidarity is an appropriate concept for thinking about justifications for a just distribution of bioethical goods in the international arena. This will be explored by looking at the national origins of the idea of justifying solidarity in the form of the health care that welfare states offer. Following that, ‘life’ and ‘health’ will be placed within a philosophical context by focusing on the main arguments of John Rawls and Amartya Sen and the role of solidarity in these two theories of justice will be analysed. It will be shown that these theories assume that solidarity is not a prerequisite for just international structures. Finally, the possibility will be discussed, that there is a degree of uncertainty surrounding justifications for fair distribution in the international context that can result when the concepts of solidarity and justice are handled imprecisely.</p>","PeriodicalId":55379,"journal":{"name":"Bioethics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/bioe.13271","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139898350","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}