Abortion
- Created by: Stephkyte
- Created on: 06-05-16 16:58
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- ABORTION
- The Start of Human Life
- Fetus: The unborn baby from the end of the eighth week after conception (when the major structures have formed) until birth.
- If a fetus is not a human being then it may not have the same rights as a fully independent human being and need not have the same kind of protection in law.
- The initial problem of Abortion is establishing the fact of 'when does human life start'.
- There are many different explanations; such as biological, philosophical or religious.
- If Human life begins at conception then, in theory, a fetus should have the same rights afforded to a fully independent human being in law.
- If this is the case, is the point at which human rights for it may begin the point at which a fetus becomes human during pregnancy.
- If the point at which a fetus becomes human during pregnancy, then this could lead to a conflict of rights between the mother and the unborn child
- Fetus: The unborn baby from the end of the eighth week after conception (when the major structures have formed) until birth.
- Biological debates
- Depend on physical evidence to understand the status of the fetus.
- When does Human Life start?
- Birth: Applied at actual physical birth, independence and individuality.
- Viability: Unborn can exist without dependence on the mother.
- Potentiality: Implies enity displays the poetential of becoming a human being' Primitive Streak or the Quickening.
- Primitive Streak: Is discernible after the fourteenth day in the development of the fetus and it is this that becomes the spinal cord.
- Quickening: This is a traditional understanding that the status of personhood can be applied when the 'child' is first felt to move.
- Conception: From the point of fertilisation of the egg (conception) the resulting product is a human being.
- Philosophical and religious debates
- Based on concepts or principles beyond the physical evidence, that is, metaphysical issues.
- Consciousness: The status of personhood is applied at the first point of consciousness or awareness.
- Ensoulment: The status of personhood is deemed appropriate when the soul enters the body.
- Continuity: Life must begin when the potential life as an individual entity is recognisable, which is the zygote at conception.
- Different stages for different humans?
- There is a clear disparity in the development of an individual. Broad timescale in which people mature, develop and grow as well a the nature of the individual.
- Moves from adolescence to adulthood, childhood to puberty. Why are the early stages of development any different.
- The value of potential life: different views.
- At which point potential human life acquires such value as to make abortion an ethical injustice.
- The sanctity of life, which is the belief that laife is in some way sacred or holy, traditionally understood as being given by God.
- The philosopher Kant gives the idea of the sanctity of life a non-religious perspective based on piurely ethical grounds.
- Philosophers such as Peter Singer have long called for the shift from talking about the sanctity of life towards a more universal discussion about the value of life. Singer does not create a ring fence around humanity, but instead talks about the value of all living things.
- Some scientists would argue the, although the fetus does not have person status or human rights and is purely a part of the process of survival of the fittest, this does not mean it has no value. It is the process of evolution and the fetus' place within it - whether it survives or not - that gives the fetus its value.
- Tony Hope, Professor of medical ethics, in his books, Medical Ethics and Law, raises an important point about the interests of a potential child when dealing woth assisted reproduction: 'One response... is to deny that it is meaningful to talk of the best interests of a potential child, or to compare life in any state, with existing.; I
- The Start of Human Life
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