Journal of medical ethics courts controversy

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Good bioethics will invariably challenge boundaries. As myfriend and colleague Julian Savulescu, Editor of the Journal of medical ethics has found out to his chagrin, publishingcontroversial ethical analyses will lead to very serious personal abuse.[1]His journal published on-line early a paper the authors of which take a stanceon infanticide that is not terribly new or original in bioethics, as Savulescurightly notes. The authors apply these arguments to maternal and family interests.Of course, an argument on infanticide, particularly one that does not rejectinfanticide out of hand, will likely upset some or even most readers. The sameis true, to a smaller extent, for other issues. Bioethics runs occasionally invited guest editorials. A few issuesback we published a guest editorial with a plea to ‘queer bioethics’.[2]Conservative commentators had a field day on the internet with what wasarguably a tame editorial suggesting we should take into consideration patientsbelonging to sexual minority groups. As we have discovered in academic analysesof former US President Bush’s bioethics chief’s indefensible claim that if wefind something repugnant it’s probably morally wrong, feelings of disgust andeven horror are bad indicators of the moral soundness or otherwise of normativeviews, behaviors etc. Otherwise interracial marriages would likely have nevercome about, given how disgusted people were about this possibility just a fewdecades ago.
Good bioethical analyses will continue to challenge and testboundaries we take for granted. In that context it is legitimate to publishpapers discussing infanticide as much as it is legitimate to publish papersdiscussing the participation of doctors in torture under certain circumstances.As Editors of bioethics journals we are interested in sound critical analysis,wherever those analyses take the substantive conclusions of papers in question.At Bioethics we have publishedreligiously motivated analyses as much as we have published papers driven bysecular modi of analysis. We will continue to do so. Savulescu certainly wasright to publish the controversial paper in his journal, especially given thathis peer reviewers indicated that the manuscript in question was worthy ofpublication in the Journal of medicalethics. No doubt there will be critical responses to the article, and that,too, is to be applauded. Arguments in our field cannot be tested by othermeans. It will be important for editors of bioethics journals not to yield toideologically motivated outside pressures. We must not permit self-censorshipto occur in anticipation of outcries by readers who find themselves indisagreement with content we publish. Instead, we encourage our readers tosubmit sound critical responses to analyses we publish. Express your rationaldisagreement in letters to the editor, critical notes, even article-lengthripostes. I cannot think of a bioethics journal that would not welcome yourresponse. Do not expect us, however, to respond to excited hand-waving in nonpeer reviewed outlets or on partisan internet sites. Time is too precious forthis.

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[1] J Savulescu.2012. “Liberals are disgusting.’ – In defence of the publication of‘After-birth abortion’. http://blogs.bmj.com/medical-ethics/2012/02/28/liberals-are-disgusting-in-defence-of-the-publication-of-after-birth-abortion/[Accessed February 29, 2012] [2] L Wahlert, AFiester. 2012. Queer bioethics: why its time has come. Bioethics 26(1): ii-iv.