The ethical indefensibility of heartbeat bills
Recently, several states in the United States have sought to adopt more restrictive abortion policies. Most have tried to enact “heartbeat bills” that prohibit most abortions once a fetal heartbeat becomes detectable. This article explores this question: Are heartbeat bills ethically defensible? I a...
| Auteur principal: | |
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| Type de support: | Électronique Article |
| Langue: | Anglais |
| Vérifier la disponibilité: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Publié: |
2022
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| Dans: |
Bioethics
Année: 2022, Volume: 36, Numéro: 8, Pages: 858-864 |
| Classifications IxTheo: | KBQ Amérique du Nord NCH Éthique médicale XA Droit |
| Sujets non-standardisés: | B
heartbeats
B embryos B in vitro fertilization B Abortion B cardiopulmonary standard of death |
| Accès en ligne: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Résumé: | Recently, several states in the United States have sought to adopt more restrictive abortion policies. Most have tried to enact “heartbeat bills” that prohibit most abortions once a fetal heartbeat becomes detectable. This article explores this question: Are heartbeat bills ethically defensible? I argue that they are not. There are at least four problems with them. First, heartbeat bills rely on a problematic understanding of human death. Second, they contradict and even undermine the leading arguments in ethics against abortion. Third, they are ambiguous not just in terms of when they judge fetal heartbeats to be detectable but also in what they deem to be heartbeats. Finally, there is a case to be made that heartbeat bills are disingenuous, both in their intentions and in their underlying motives. |
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| ISSN: | 1467-8519 |
| Contient: | Enthalten in: Bioethics
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1111/bioe.13068 |
