When Drug Use Isn’t Just About Anti-Drug Laws: Criminalizing Pregnancy Behavior

U.S. states have long had the power to override a pregnant woman’s medical autonomy in specific kinds of instances in order to prevent harm to her fetus. Means for doing so have included court orders to compel C-section or to … Continue reading

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Your Body is a Battleground

In the New York Times on Friday, January 24, 2014, three stories appeared that demonstrate the degree to which women’s bodies are still battlegrounds for men. The first was good news: the Moroccan law that allowed rapists to escape punishment … Continue reading

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Callous analogies: a blogger reflects on the implications of abortion policy for her own treatment decisions regarding her severely premature infants

The rhetoric surrounding late abortions and so-called “fourth trimester abortions” (in which the fetus is alive after an attempted abortion) touches perilously on the ethical issues surrounding care for very premature infants. The author of this blog entry at a … Continue reading

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United States Receives “C-” on Reproductive Health

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New Abortion Regulations in Texas

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Legal Personhood and the Beginning of Life in Northern Ireland: Can the coroner inquire into the death of someone who was never born?

This is a guest post by Nathan Emmerich. Nathan Emmerich is a Visiting Research Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast where he has been working on Bioethical Expertise. He took his PhD from Queen’s and this was recently published as a book entitled ‘Medical Ethics Education.’

On Thursday the 21st of November the Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland (NI) gave its judgement in a case between the Attorney General for NI, John Larkin, and the Senior Coroner for Northern Ireland. The case concerned whether the Attourney General could compel the coroner to convene an inquest into a still-birth. The coroner had declined to do so, arguing that it did not fall within the remit of his office. Briefly, as the role of the coroner is to investigate deaths there had to be an individual who was, legally speaking, alive and had subsequently died. Thus coroners in NI and, for that matter, the UK have not historically held inquests into still-births. A lower court had previously upheld the position of the coroner and that judgement alluded to some of the concerns I raise here.

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The question of when life and, in particular, human life begins and ends has been persistent and contentious in biology, philosophy, theology and law. In bioethical thought there are a number of different accounts where it is common to distinguish between the start of life and the point at which a human organism attracts moral importance. Furthermore we might think that the human organism has different moral weights depending on the state of its development or, for that matter, demise. Such consdierations lead in a variety of directions, not least to the provocative argument that neonates might not meet the requirements for ‘personhood’ and therefore should not be considered (full) members of the moral community. It is not easy to resolve these ethical conundra and they will continue to trouble bioethical scholarship for the foreseeable future. However, the law cannot afford the luxury of uncertainty. Whilst we might recognise some degree of complexity and attempt to mediate between competing demands, ultimately the law has to adopt a position on when the ‘human organism’ becomes an individual, recognised by law and, therefore, a (legal) person.

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“TX women bring abortion fight to world of video games”

Although we have entered 21st century, but men of today do not want to talk about their erectile dysfunction or premature ejaculation problems, there are those who sit for hours on the internet researching for the best results, make it … Continue reading

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“New Video Game Challenges Users To Navigate Texas’ Harsh Abortion Restrictions”

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The Ireland Abortion Debate

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Texas Senate Vote Puts Bill Restricting Abortion Over Final Hurdle

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Women, politics and feminism: we need to watch our backs

The times are tough, both for women in politics, and regarding political decisions affecting women. Three recent events are particularly noteworthy. The first was the overthrow last week of the first female Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. While I was scouring news sites for comment and analysis on that sorry affair, I noticed the extraordinary effort of Texan senator Wendy Davis to filibister a Senate Bill that aimed to introduce regulations with the potential to close 37 of the 42 clinics that provide abortions in Texas and to ban abortion after 20 weeks gestation. Her courage and tenacity have proved to be a lightening rod, attracting swelling support in the aftermath of her marathon speech. The contrast could not be greater between this event and the actions of Ohio’s governor in signing into law major restrictions on women’s reproductive rights in that state a few days later. As Steve Benen reports, Governor Kasich was surrounded by middle-aged white men as at the stroke of a pen, he introduced wide-ranging and draconian measures that will make seeking abortion, for women including those pregnant following rape, a far more onerous, expensive and difficult event than it needs to be.

How are these events linked?

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LET HER SPEAK

Tuesday night, Senator Wendy Davis, a very vocal supporting crowd at the Texas capitol, and very engaged online communities fought for women’s reproductive rights in Texas.

And won.

The issue, if you haven’t heard — and you may not have, as mainstream media ignored this yesterday (most hilariously on CNN, where the caloric value of blueberry muffins were discussed during the climax in the TX Senate) — the issue was Texas Senate Bill 5. This bill would make illegal any abortions “at or later than 20 weeks post-fertilization” on the basis that “substantial medical evidence recognizes that an unborn child is capable of experiencing pain by not later than 20 weeks after fertilization” (SB5). This, along with other restrictions about meeting ambulatory care facility standards, would restrict the number of abortion providers in the state of Texas by 80-90%, leaving just five. FIVE PROVIDERS. For the entire state of Texas.

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