The new biology and the question of personhood: implications for abortion

Opposition to abortion is based in part on the assumption that personhood is achieved at or shortly after fertilization of the egg. This interpretation of personhood arises from a contemporary application of the ancient doctrine of preformationism, a doctrine which holds that there is a preformed individual, in an ontological sense, within the developing entity. The assumption that the fertilized egg is unique in its capacity to develop into a human being is at least in part responsible for the opinions of those opposed to abortion. Yet, the uniqueness of the zygote in its capacity to develop into an adult organism is qualified by the discovery that development may be possible in a number of other ways. Consideration of the phenomena of cloning, parthenogenesis and chimerism can relieve moral ambiguity about abortion and may reduce opposition to that practice.     

Queer(ed) risks: life insurance, HIV/AIDS, and the "gay question"

In 2004 the Association of British Insurers (ABI) issued its second Statement of Best Practice on HIV and Insurance. This prohibited use of the "gay question" (employed by some underwriters in application forms for life insurance to identify heightened risk of infection with HIV), in response to growing criticism that the practice was actuarially unreliable, unfair to gay men, and unnecessary, given the availability of alternative "behaviour-based" risk criteria. While the overhaul of this controversial practice is clearly a victory for gay (male) identity politics, this paper argues that the interests of gay men seem to have dominated at the expense of a more far-reaching critique of the industry's evaluation of infection risk. It contends that a more radical (or "queerer") challenge is needed which can better understand and address the injustices created by criteria for appraising risk of infection that still remain in place.     

Legislative Intentions and Counterfactu-als: Or,What One Can Still Learn from Dworkin's Critique of Legal Positivism

Riggs v. Palmer has become famous since Dworkin used it to show that legal positivism is defective. The debate over the merits of Dworkin's claims is still very lively. Yet not enough attention has been paid to the fact that the content of the statute at issue in Riggs was given by the counterfactual intention of the legislature. According to arguments from legislative intent, a judicial decision is justified if it is based on the lawmaker's intention. But can legislative intentions be determined counterfactually? More generally, what are the discursive commitments undertaken by a lawyer or a judge, in an exchange of legal reasons, when using this interpretive methodology? This paper addresses these issues considering, in particular, David Lewis's “resemblance” condition and “relevant similarity” between possible worlds in the evaluation of counterfactual statements. The analysis sheds some new light on the debate on theoretical disagreements and shows that Dworkin's conception of law as an argumentative practice is not necessarily at odds with legal positivism. It rather allows us to look at it under a better light.     

Beyond Otonomy, or Beyond the Law of Law's Ear

Can the relationship between law and literature be thought in terms of conversation? Can the law still ‘hear’ the voice of a writing that has come before it, yet outside the frame of the ‘hearing’ and the rules of ‘standing’? And when literature speaks, what does it say? Perhaps what the law has always known …     

Striking back at the empire: A brief survey of problems in Dworkin's theory of law

Conclusion In Law's Empire Dworkin remains committed to carving out a middleground between natural law and legal positivism. But natural law andlegal positivism are best viewed as complementary answers to differ-ent questions, There is no middle ground between them. Nor is thequestion that Dworkin's Integrity asks one that could be coherentlyanswered i f it were an important question. Fortunately, it is not.