If you are like me, you aren’t sure what “heuristic” means. According to multiple sources, it is an experience-based technique for problem solving. In her new article,Pain as Fact and Heuristic: How Pain Neuroimaging Illuminates Moral Dimensions of Law, Professor Amanda C. Pustilnik argues against a simple understanding of physical pain as a justification for […]
Month: August 2011
The views of Joseph Raz, Ronald Dworkin, John Finnis, and Robert George on the value and limits of personal autonomy are examined in a new article by Adam McLeod, The Mystery of Life in the Laboratory of Democracy: Personal Autonomy in State Law. “The article then examines several different areas of state law where one […]
Randy Beck has just posted a new piece entitled Fueling Controversy on SSRN. He responds to a recent Yale Law Journal article by Linda Greenhouse and Reva Siegel, Before (and After) Roe v. Wade: New Questions about Backlash, in which they question the received wisdom that the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade generated […]
Here is a link to Frank Beckwith’s recent column discussing Judith Jarvis Thomson’s famous article entitled “A Defense of Abortion.” http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/thomsons-defense-of-abortion-at-forty.html In the article, Thomson presented the violinist analogy. Frank’s discussion in this column criticizes Thomson’s analogy for “not really granting the pro-life view of persoonhood.” He concludes this column with this paragraph: “Because of these institutions and ways […]
Andrew Haines makes basically the same point apropos of Tollefson’s essay as I did the other day. And here’s just one more way of putting it that occurred to me this morning. I think it’s safe to say that we have a natural desire for health (and even a natural inclination to health – I […]
Registration is still open for Matercare International’s Eighth Worldwide Conference. The conference theme is the “Dignity of Mothers and Obstetricians-Who on Earth Cares.” It will be held August 31-September 4, 2011 at the Instituto Maria Bambina, Rome. The conference schedule can be found here, and registration forms here. Matercare International is an international group of […]
Abstracts and symposia proposals are invited for the 11th conference of the International Association of Bioethics: THINKING AHEAD, Bioethics and the Future, and the Future of Bioethics, which will be held from June 26th till June 29th, 2012 in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The IAB conferences are an interdisciplinary forum for the exchange of moral views, practices, […]
The New York Times magazine has a story entitled “The Two-Minus-One Pregnancy,” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/magazine/the-two-minus-one-pregnancy.html?_r=1, which deals with “selective reduction. Here is a commentary from LifeNews. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/08/10/new-york-times-touts-selective-reduction-as-a-half-abortion/ Richard M.
I recently blogged about the Ninth Circuit opinion requiring police to enforce the “Mother May I” or “speech free zones” against clinic escorts as well as sidewalk counselors here. Just discovered another story about Rev. Hoye’s prolife efforts in The Catholic Voice of Oakland Diocese. It seems he was behind the placement of several billboards […]
Here is Prof. Christopher Tollefsen: “Contraception and Healthcare Rights.” I think it’s pretty carefully thought out and argued (one possible quibble based on a quick first reading would be with the “great gravity and urgency” criterion, though that probably has nothing to do with the point about contraception). And I think Tollefsen implicitly points to […]