(Co-authored with Elselijn Kingma.) We argue that careful attention to the nature of pregnancy shows that many traditionally important moral distinctions, such the doing/allowing distinction, action/omission distinction and the harming/benefiting distinction, do not apply easily to pregnant women and their fetuses. This has important practical implications in cases of ‘maternal-fetal conflict’.
Our first paper, "Can You Harm Your Foetus? Pregnancy, Physical Indistinctness and Difficult Deontological Distinctions" addresses pregnancy and the doing/allowing distinction. This paper has been conditionally accepted at Ethics. If you would like to read and comment on a draft paper, please email: [email protected])