I am very grateful to the various commentators for their insights and responses to my paper. I will not have the space here to address each one in detail, but there are some general themes which I would like to respond to. As far as I can tell, however, none of the responses to my paper seem to constitute objections to my main claim but seem to be alternative ways of viewing the same problem: what is the connection between the mereology of pregnancy and reproductive ethics? Hopefully some clarifications on my part will show that we are all broadly in agreement. I am glad my paper has generated such reflection and discussion.
In the six responses, there are several questions related to the mereology of pregnancy itself.