Elselijn Kingma
Biographic Data
| ID | 1607466 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Elselijn Kingma |
| GIVEN NAMES | Elselijn |
| FAMILY NAME | Kingma |
| SIGNATURE | KINGMA E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Southampton |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9787-3198 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 30 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 12 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Can You Do Harm to Your Fetus? Pregnancy, Barriers, and the Doing/Allowing Distinction
When pregnant persons do not behave in the way deemed optimal for their fetus, they are often framed as doing harm. This framing acts as a justificatory bypass for defenses of widespread expectations of pregnant persons, allowing such defenses to avoid substantial questions about special obligations in pregnancy. Our main claim is that this justificatory bypass is unwarranted: in many cases either the pregnant person does not count as doing harm …
Ethics round table
Decisions about how and where they deliver their baby are extremely important to pregnant women. There are very strong ethical norms that women’s autonomy should be respected, and that plans around birth should be personalised. However, there appear to be profound challenges in practice to respecting women’s choices in pregnancy and labour. Choices carry risks and consequences—to the woman and her child; also potentially to her caregivers and to …
The ethics of consent during labour and birth
Unconsented episiotomies and other procedures during labour are commonly reported by women in several countries, and often highlighted in birth activism. Yet, forced caesarean sections aside, the ethics of consent during labour has received little attention. Focusing on episiotomies, this paper addresses whether and how consent in labour should be obtained. We briefly review the rationale for informed consent, distinguishing its intrinsic and ins…
Consent and episiotomies
Contains fulltext : 296167.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)
Parental obligation and compelled caesarean section
Whether it is morally permissible to compel women to undergo a caesarean section is a topic of longstanding debate. Despite plenty of arguments against the moral permissibility of a forced caesarean section, the question keeps cropping up. This paper seeks to scrutinise a particular moral argument in favour of compulsion: the appeal to parental obligation. We present what we take to be a distillation of the basic form of this argument. We then ar…
In defence of gestatelings
Ectogestation—that is, ‘artificial’ or extramammalian pregnancy—may soon be within technological reach. This confronts us with questions about the correct moral and legal attitude towards the subjects of this technology, which are called ‘gestatelings’. Colgrove argues that gestatelings are a kind of newborn, and consequently should have the same moral and legal protections as newborns. This paper responds that both claims are unsupported by his …
Harming one to benefit another
This paper critically analyses ‘the paradox of autonomy and consent in maternity care’. It argues that maternity care has certain features that increase the need for explicit attention to, and respect for, both autonomy and rigorous informed consent processes. And, moreover, that the resulting need is considerably greater than in almost all other areas of medicine. These features are as follows: (1) maternity care involves particularly socially s…
Neonatal incubator or artificial womb? Distinguishing ectogestation and ectogenesis using the metaphysics of pregnancy
A 2017 Nature report was widely touted as hailing the arrival of the artificial womb. But the scientists involved claim their technology is merely an improvement in neonatal care. This raises an under‐considered question: what differentiates neonatal incubation from artificial womb technology? Considering the nature of gestation—or metaphysics of pregnancy—(a) identifies more profound differences between fetuses and neonates/babies than their loc…
Biological Individuality, Pregnancy, and (Mammalian) Reproduction
Mammals are usually considered unproblematic as biological individuals. This article contends the opposite. Once we consider pregnancy, criteria for biological individuality are not easily applicable in mammals and give conflicting results: mammalian pregnancy poses a problem for biological individuality. This may open fruitful new approaches to biological individuality and is of relevance to metaphysicians interested in (human) organisms
Situation-Specific Disease and Dispositional Function
In ( Kingma [2010] ), I argued that Boorse's ([1977], [1997]) biostatistical theory of health (BST) is unable to accommodate diseases that are the normal result of harmful environments. Hausman ( [2011] ) disagrees: if the BST compares normal dispositional function against the whole population or reference class, rather than against organisms in similar circumstances as I proposed, then my ( [2010] ) challenge can be avoided. In this paper, I arg…
What is Philosophy of Medicine
Philosophy of Medicine is considered a new and emerging discipline. This paper presents an overview of philosophy of medicine, discusses its relation to bioethics and to other areas of philosophy, and introduces three potential topics for research in the philosophy of medicine: concepts of health and disease, the relationship between medicine and psychiatry, and the problems of medical knowledge and evidence
Paracetamol, Poison, and Polio
Christopher Boorse's Bio Statistical Theory (BST) defines health as the absence of disease, and disease as the adverse departure from normal species functioning. This paper presents a two-pronged problem for this account. First I demonstrate that, in order to accurately account for dynamic physiological functions, Boorse's account of normal function needs to be modified to index functions against situations. I then demonstrate that if functions a…
Paracetamol, Poison, and Polio
Christopher Boorse's Bio Statistical Theory (BST) defines health as the absence of disease, and disease as the adverse departure from normal species functioning. This paper presents a two-pronged problem for this account. First I demonstrate that, in order to accurately account for dynamic physiological functions, Boorse's account of normal function needs to be modified to index functions against situations. I then demonstrate that if functions a…
Situation-Specific Disease and Dispositional Function
In ( Kingma [2010] ), I argued that Boorse's ([1977], [1997]) biostatistical theory of health (BST) is unable to accommodate diseases that are the normal result of harmful environments. Hausman ( [2011] ) disagrees: if the BST compares normal dispositional function against the whole population or reference class, rather than against organisms in similar circumstances as I proposed, then my ( [2010] ) challenge can be avoided. In this paper, I arg…
Biological Individuality, Pregnancy, and (Mammalian) Reproduction
Mammals are usually considered unproblematic as biological individuals. This article contends the opposite. Once we consider pregnancy, criteria for biological individuality are not easily applicable in mammals and give conflicting results: mammalian pregnancy poses a problem for biological individuality. This may open fruitful new approaches to biological individuality and is of relevance to metaphysicians interested in (human) organisms
Paracetamol, Poison, and Polio
Christopher Boorse's Bio Statistical Theory (BST) defines health as the absence of disease, and disease as the adverse departure from normal species functioning. This paper presents a two-pronged problem for this account. First I demonstrate that, in order to accurately account for dynamic physiological functions, Boorse's account of normal function needs to be modified to index functions against situations. I then demonstrate that if functions a…
What is Philosophy of Medicine
Philosophy of Medicine is considered a new and emerging discipline. This paper presents an overview of philosophy of medicine, discusses its relation to bioethics and to other areas of philosophy, and introduces three potential topics for research in the philosophy of medicine: concepts of health and disease, the relationship between medicine and psychiatry, and the problems of medical knowledge and evidence
Situation-Specific Disease and Dispositional Function
In ( Kingma [2010] ), I argued that Boorse's ([1977], [1997]) biostatistical theory of health (BST) is unable to accommodate diseases that are the normal result of harmful environments. Hausman ( [2011] ) disagrees: if the BST compares normal dispositional function against the whole population or reference class, rather than against organisms in similar circumstances as I proposed, then my ( [2010] ) challenge can be avoided. In this paper, I arg…
Neonatal incubator or artificial womb? Distinguishing ectogestation and ectogenesis using the metaphysics of pregnancy
A 2017 Nature report was widely touted as hailing the arrival of the artificial womb. But the scientists involved claim their technology is merely an improvement in neonatal care. This raises an under‐considered question: what differentiates neonatal incubation from artificial womb technology? Considering the nature of gestation—or metaphysics of pregnancy—(a) identifies more profound differences between fetuses and neonates/babies than their loc…
Biological Individuality, Pregnancy, and (Mammalian) Reproduction
Mammals are usually considered unproblematic as biological individuals. This article contends the opposite. Once we consider pregnancy, criteria for biological individuality are not easily applicable in mammals and give conflicting results: mammalian pregnancy poses a problem for biological individuality. This may open fruitful new approaches to biological individuality and is of relevance to metaphysicians interested in (human) organisms
Parental obligation and compelled caesarean section
Whether it is morally permissible to compel women to undergo a caesarean section is a topic of longstanding debate. Despite plenty of arguments against the moral permissibility of a forced caesarean section, the question keeps cropping up. This paper seeks to scrutinise a particular moral argument in favour of compulsion: the appeal to parental obligation. We present what we take to be a distillation of the basic form of this argument. We then ar…
In defence of gestatelings
Ectogestation—that is, ‘artificial’ or extramammalian pregnancy—may soon be within technological reach. This confronts us with questions about the correct moral and legal attitude towards the subjects of this technology, which are called ‘gestatelings’. Colgrove argues that gestatelings are a kind of newborn, and consequently should have the same moral and legal protections as newborns. This paper responds that both claims are unsupported by his …
Harming one to benefit another
This paper critically analyses ‘the paradox of autonomy and consent in maternity care’. It argues that maternity care has certain features that increase the need for explicit attention to, and respect for, both autonomy and rigorous informed consent processes. And, moreover, that the resulting need is considerably greater than in almost all other areas of medicine. These features are as follows: (1) maternity care involves particularly socially s…
The ethics of consent during labour and birth
Unconsented episiotomies and other procedures during labour are commonly reported by women in several countries, and often highlighted in birth activism. Yet, forced caesarean sections aside, the ethics of consent during labour has received little attention. Focusing on episiotomies, this paper addresses whether and how consent in labour should be obtained. We briefly review the rationale for informed consent, distinguishing its intrinsic and ins…
Consent and episiotomies
Contains fulltext : 296167.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)
Ethics round table
Decisions about how and where they deliver their baby are extremely important to pregnant women. There are very strong ethical norms that women’s autonomy should be respected, and that plans around birth should be personalised. However, there appear to be profound challenges in practice to respecting women’s choices in pregnancy and labour. Choices carry risks and consequences—to the woman and her child; also potentially to her caregivers and to …
Can You Do Harm to Your Fetus? Pregnancy, Barriers, and the Doing/Allowing Distinction
When pregnant persons do not behave in the way deemed optimal for their fetus, they are often framed as doing harm. This framing acts as a justificatory bypass for defenses of widespread expectations of pregnant persons, allowing such defenses to avoid substantial questions about special obligations in pregnancy. Our main claim is that this justificatory bypass is unwarranted: in many cases either the pregnant person does not count as doing harm …
Medicine (9 works) · Political science (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Psychology (7 works) · Epistemology (6 works) · Philosophy (6 works) · Biology (5 works) · Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health (5 works) · Pregnancy (5 works) · Reproductive Health and Technologies (5 works)