Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: ATUI: The Moral Status of the Fetus
From: mcbeanb@brandonu.ca
Date: 7 Nov 92 21:29:57 CST
Organization: Brandon University, Brandon, Manitoba, Canada

The Moral Status of the Fetus

     In order to have an intelligent discussion of the abortion issue, 
some distinctions must be made on the moral status of the fetus.  If the 
fetus had no moral rights, it would be many times easier to assume abortion
was entirely acceptable under any conditions.
     One distinction which might be made is the definition of what we
call a human being.  If a human being has a right to life, and a fetus
can be defined as a human being, then the fetus would have the right
to life, and abortion would therefore be wrong.  Some anti-abortionists
try to define a human being as a living being with a specific sequence
of chromosomes.  This is a misleading interpretation because such a 
definition does not capture the true meaning of the term "human being".
Another method may be to say that a typical human being has a designated
list of biological characteristics which must be fulfilled.  Still,
you cannot define a human being simply with a physical description.
There are mental, emotional, and religious aspects to take into account
as well.  Others define a human being as something with an immortal soul.
For millions of people, this is acceptable, but it is conceivable that
something inhuman could have an immortal soul, so the definition is
unacceptable.  Even if one of these vague definitions were used, there
would be immense difficulty in deciding when the union of a sperm and
ovum, hereby referred to as a zygote, develops into what is called
a human being.
     Anti-abortionists can make just as little progress in defining the
term "person" as they can with "human being".  For instance, you may
prescribe to Michael Tooley's definition of a person being something
with a self concept (cited in Feinberg, 1984), but when do you suppose
a fetus, or a baby becomes aware of itself?  Developmental psychologists
believe self awareness doesn't surface notably until a few months
after birth (Wortman & Loftus, 1985), and it certainly is not morally
correct to "abort" a baby that is several months old.  You may also
define personhood as something which begins when a person's life
begins.  Some may argue that life begins at conception because
of the cell division which quickly occurs thereafter (Mitchell,
Mutchmoor, & Dolphin, 1988), but other people may not think life
begins until several months, or even years after birth.
     What the question of the moral status of the fetus essentially comes
down to is when it acquires the right to life.  Almost everybody may 
agree that a newborn baby has the right to life, and that a newly formed
zygote does not, but where in between is the right gained?  Birth is
not a logically sound distinguishment because there is virtually no 
difference between a newborn baby and a fetus one day prior to birth.
There is a difference in location, but changing one's location does
not change one's rights unless the change of locale is from country
to country.  Some choose viability as a reasonable point to gain the
right to life, but this is also unreasonable.  Firstly, it is difficult
to determine exactly when a fetus may survive on its own, and secondly,
even a viable fetus requires to be fed and cared for.  Laws normally
designate 28 weeks after conception as being the time a fetus becomes
viable, but modern technology has decreased that time (Nelson & Roricht,
1984).  Complete viability in humans probably does not occur until several
years after birth.  Quickening, or the time a mother feels fluttering
or kicking of her baby after about 16 to 18 weeks following conception
(Nelson et al. 1984), is even less reliable.  What if a fetus is tired
one day, and quickening is delayed for that day, even thought it should
have reasonably occurred?  Surely a fetus should not be aborted or saved
according to its daily physical activity.
     It seems most reasonable to me that implantation of the zygote on
the walls of the uterus is the when a right to life is acquired.  Ramsey
designates a period of seven or eight days after ovulation as being the time
for implantation to occur (cited in Noonan, 1972).  Before implantation,
only cell division may occur.  Organ differentiation does not happen,
and there is not cell differentiation (Mitchell et al. 1988), so the 
zygote may only be considered as an expanding lump of cells.  
Implantation is medically detectable (Nelson et al. 1984), and also
signifies the first physical unification between the mother and her
potential child, so it seems to be a reasonable time to pay compassion
to the organism.


NEXT POST: The Conservative Position, and Why it's Morally Correct

Brian McBean  -  McBeanB@BrandonU.Ca
Newsgroups: talk.abortion