A bioethicist is considering the merits of charging people more based on something physical that arguably can't be adequately controlled? Really? That's not at all what I imagined bioethics to look like.

First, let us forget this idea that people wouldn't be fat if they just applied enough will power. Diets generally don't work in the long run. Any other procedure with such a high failure rate would be discouraged. And loads of fat people spend their entire lives ceaselessly fighting to lose weight, while putting up with poor treatment from individuals and institutions.

Listen: we don't penalize people for their bodies - not for their weight, not for their height, not for their color, not for whether or not they choose to have babies, not for the stress-related illnesses they may have gotten from having to work for rotten employers, not for their weird-smelling coffee and cigarette breath.

People are not luggage. We don't measure them by the same standards, and we certainly don't treat them as though they're objects.

Planes are crowded; if folks can't handle being squeezed in among diverse people, perhaps they need to find other modes of transport.