Associate Professor
Andrew McGee

Biography

• medical ethics
• bioethics
• end-of-life decision making including euthanasia, assisted suicide, and withdrawing life-prolonging measures (LPM), and differences between withholding and withdrawing LPM
• Utilitarian versus deontological approaches to health care
• the ethics of embryonic stem cell research and conceptual issues concerning the relationship between embryonic stem cells, induced pluripotent cells and somatic cells
• reproductive ethics and the non-identity problem
• the ethics of abortion and infanticide
• the ethics of human enhancement, including gene editing and designer babies
• organ donation and the definition of death
• philosophy of law, especially Hart and Dworkin
• criminal law and the definition of intent for mens rea
• causing death by act and omission
• statutory interpretation

• ‘Differences in the definition of brain death and their legal impact on intensive care practice’, with Dr Dale Gardiner MD (2019) 74(5) Anaesthesia 569-572.
• ‘Informing the euthanasia debate: Perceptions of Australian politicians’, with Kelly Purser, Christopher Stackpoole, Ben White, Lindy Willmott, Juliet Davis (2018) 41(4) University of New South Wales Law Journal 1368-1417.
• ‘Abortion law reform: Why ethical intractability and maternal morbidity are grounds for decriminalisation’ with Dr Melanie Jansen MD, and Dr Sally Anne Sheldon (2018) 58(5) Australian and New Zealand Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology 594-597.
• ‘Donation after circulatory determination of death: some responses to recent criticisms’, with Dr Dale Gardiner, MD (2018) 43(2) Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 211-240.
• Donation after circulatory determination of death: An ethical propriety’, with Dr Dale Gardiner MD and Dr Paul Murphy MD (2018) 23(1) Current Opinion in Organ Transplantation 114-119.
• Advice and care for patients who die by voluntarily stopping eating and drinking is not assisted suicide', with Franklin G Miller (2017) 15(1) BMC Medicine 222.
• ‘Permanence can be defended’, with Dr Dale Gardiner MD (2017) 31(3) Bioethics 20-30.
• 'Is There Such a Thing as a Love Drug? (2016) 23(2) Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 79-92.
• 'We Are Human Beings' (2016) Journal of Medicine and Philosophy (forthcoming).
• ‘Love’s exemplars: A response to Gupta, Earp and Savulescu’ (2016) 23(2) Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 101-102.
• ‘Death, permanence and current practice in donation after circulatory determination of death’ (2016) 110(4) QJM: An International Journal of Medicine 199-201.
• 'The Potentiality of the Embryo and the Somatic Cell' (2014) 45(4-5) Metaphilosophy 689.
• 'Does Withdrawing Life-Sustaining Treatment Cause Death or Allow the Patient to Die?' (2014) 22(1) Medical Law Review 26.
• 'Acting to Let Someone Die' (2015) 29(2) Bioethics 74-81 doi:10.1111/bioe.12072.
• 'Is Providing Elective Ventilation in the Best Interests of Potential Donors?' (with Prof B White) (2013) 39(3) Journal of Medical Ethics 135 doi:10.1136/medethics-2012-100991.
• 'The Moral Status of Babies'  (2013) 39(5) Journal of Medical Ethics 345.
• 'Intention, Foresight, and Ending Life: A Response to Foster, Herring, Melham and Hope' (2013) 22(1) Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 77.
• 'Omissions, Causation and Responsibility: A Reply to Coggon and McLachlan' (2011) 8(4) Journal of Bioethical Inquiry. ERA ranked A. DOI: 10.1007/s11673-011-9330-2.
• 'Ending the Life of the Act/Omission Dispute: Causation in Withholding and Withdrawing Life-Sustaining Measures' (2011) 31(3) Legal Studies: Journal of the Society of Legal Scholars 467. ERA ranked A*.
• 'Me and My Body: The Relevance of the Distinction for the Difference between Withdrawing Life Support and Euthanasia' (2011) 39(4) Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics 671.
• 'Defending the Sanctity of Life Principle: A Reply to John Keown' (2011) 18 Journal of Law and Medicine 820. ERA ranked A.
• 'Is Dawkins a Modern Day Nicodemus?' (2011) LV (4) Quadrant.
• 'When Does Pain Relief Hastening Death Become Killing (2011) 20(3) Transplant Journal of Australasia. Guest Editorial.
• 'Finding a Way Through the Ethical and Legal Maze: Withdrawal of Medical Treatment and Euthanasia' (2005) 13(3) Medical Law Review 357. ERA ranked A.
• 'Double Effect in the Criminal Code 1899 (Qld): A Critical Appraisal' (2004) 4(1) Queensland University of Technology Law and Justice Journal 46. ERA ranked C.
• 'Bloody Pell!! Q&A stoush between Dawkins and Pell fails to bridge the gap between faith and science' The Conversation 13 April 2012.
• 'There's no good argument for infanticide' The Conversation 2 March 2012, republished on the Journal of Medical Ethics website and on University of Oxford's Practical Ethics website on 5 March 2012.
• 'Finding the Balance in South Australia's Euthanasia Legislation' The Conversation 28 September 2011.
• 'The Long Road to Legalising Euthanasia in South Australia' The Conversation 7 April 2011.
• 'Defining Euthanasia' On Line Opinion 1 July 2010.
• 'Inherent Defects and the Repair Covenant in Commercial Leases' (2007) 7(2) Queensland University of Technology Law and Justice Journal 325. ERA ranked C.