JME BMJ Group

Through the use of assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) multiple children are born, adding to worldwide carbon emissions.
According to a paper in JME, evaluating the ethics of offering reproductive services against its overall harm to the environment makes unregulated ARTs unjustified, yet the business can move towards sustainability.
The paper's author, Cristina Richie, Theology Department, Boston College, lays out her argument for regulating ARTs in terms of carbon emissions, and how this could be done.
Read the paper: http://goo.gl/55xsF3

Home births are slightly more risky than hospital births, so does this mean it's immoral for women to have one?
Lachlan de Crespigny and obstetrician and gynechologist from the University of Melbourne, and Julian Savulescu, from the faculty of philosophy at the University of Oxford join the JME podcast to discuss.

Nigel Biggar, Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford explains why he believes abortion should be permissible before 18 weeks, but not beyond. Whilst he believes there may always be an element of arbitrariness in choosing a specific date, he defends the development of brain activity, and therefore the beginning of consciousness and the capacity to respond to higher goods, as the key development that makes human beings worthy of special care.

Jeff McMahan, Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University argues that, with our current medical knowledge, there are around four months where a foetus would survive if it were born prematurely. Therefore, the main difference between infanticide and abortion during that period is the geography of the foetus. There are stronger reasons for allowing abortion than infanticide; a foetus imposes a unique burden on one individual, the mother. Once born, on the other hand, the baby may be adopted or its care shared amongst a group of people. Nevertheless, it may be that in some rare cases infanticide can be morally permissible.