When does a fetus become a person? An Israeli viewpoint (original) (raw)
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The Linacre Quarterly, 2005
who many might consider to hold radical views on human life. Singer argues that the early human embryo is not a human individual who is a person. He contends that the potential of a human embryo existing in the laboratory is not the same as the one who is already implanted in the endometrium of the uterus. Redefining the term "potentiality", Singer examines the potency of the egg and sperm alone as well as jointly. Central to understanding the philosophy of Peter Singer on human life is his rejection of the doctrines of specieism and sanctity of human life. Singer's thesis is that not all members of Homo sapiens are persons and not all persons are members of the species Homo sapiens. What constitutes a "person" for Singer remains open to be subjectively defined according to the characteristics that are chosen. This remains crucial for Singer in terms of which organisms can be subjected to clinical experimentation as regards moral rights. Peter Singer's arguments against the early human embryo being an individual human person are unconvincing. While admitting that he wants to free us from particular religious views, he fails to make an adequate argument that not all members of Homo sapiens are persons and not all persons are members of Homo sapiens. Peter Singer's use oflogic is consistently followed to the very end of his startling conclusions. Peter Singer argues that we should reject the view that a human zygote or early human embryo is a distinct human individual. 1 In his view, 212 Linacre Quarterly
The Moral Status of the Fetus and the Concept of Personhood
2021
The purpose of this study is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the existing approaches and concepts regarding the status of the fetus, address its importance as well as identify an approach that could possibly help in solving the dilemma on the moral status of the fetus. In general, the topic of abortion is very complex and raises a lot of different issues regardless of whether we try to analyze it from ethical, scientific, religious, legal, or political point of view. This study is focused solely on two ethical questions in the abortion debate. The first question is to define the moral status of the fetus and the second is about determining the importance of the fetal status for the abortion debate. Employing the descriptive, analytical, and comparative methods the study presents various different views and ethical approaches on the issue. The analysis demonstrates that all of the theories have their own problems and could potentially be very misleading and harmful to society....
Fetus as Human Being: Where is the Cut-off Point?
Journal of medical ethics and history of medicine, 2009
Abortion is one of the controversial issues discussed in medical ethics. We can formulate the argument which is put forward by the opponents of abortion as follows: 1) fetus has to be regarded as human being; 2) killing an innocent human being is morally wrong; 3) aborting is an example of killing and terminating a human being's life. So, being engaged in aborting is morally wrong. In this paper, I am going to argue that the proponents' argument with regard to the implausibility of categorizing fetus as human being is unjustified and wanting. In other words, the way in which the proponents of abortion talk about the idea of personhood is, inadequate and vague, semantically speaking. The outline of the argument is as follows. The proponents of abortion are confronted with a dilemma. According to the first horn of the dilemma, the proponents have to subscribe to infanticide which is morally wrong, intuitively speaking. According to the second horn of the dilemma, there is a se...
This paper addresses the question of whether the fetus is human and its effect on the abortion debate. It investigates the concept of " human " and asks whether the concept of human has an essence or is best understood by the idea of family resemblance. It asks whether DNA is the essence of humanity and concludes that it is not and that humanity is best understood using family resemblance involving a range of attributes common to humans. It concludes the fetus does not have the range of attributes that would make it human.
Are Fetuses Being with any Moral Rights? A Perspective from Abortion
2019
The fetus destined to be born rather than aborted has become increasingly an object of medical and moral concern. The debate over fetal surgery, fetal rights, and maternal-fetal conflicts raises important ethical questions concerning the moral status of the fetus. The liberals doubt think that the fetuses should have moral rights at conception, and the conservatives challenges the liberal position. The paper pointed out five characteristics of personhood following Mary Anne Warren’s view. I have shown the pro-life and pro-choice belief of when personhood begins. The pro-life believe that human personhood begins at conception, whereas the pro-choice holds contrary view is that personhood develops later during pregnancy or at childbirth. Finally, the paper concludes considering that there is no moral difference between a fetus and a born child as we cannot draw any line in its continuous development.
The Relevance (and Irrelevance) of Questions of Personhood (and Mindedness) to the Abortion Debate
Socio-Historical Examination of Religion and Ministry, 2019
PREVIEW ONLY Download the Full Article Here: https://doi.org/10.33929/sherm.2019.vol1.no2.02 Disagreements about abortion are often assumed to reduce to disagreements about fetal personhood (and mindedness). If one believes a fetus is a person (or has a mind), then they are "pro-life." If one believes a fetus is not a person (or is not minded), they are "pro-choice." The issue, however, is much more complicated. Not only is it not dichotomous-most everyone believes that abortion is permissible in some circumstances (e.g. to save the mother's life) and not others (e.g. at nine months of a planned pregnancy)-but scholars on both sides of the issue (e.g. Don Marquis and Judith Thomson) have convincingly argued that fetal personhood (and mindedness) are irrelevant to the debate. To determine the extent to which they are right, this article will define "personhood," its relationship to mindedness, and explore what science has revealed about the mind before exploring the relevance of both to questions of abortion's morality and legality. In general, this article does not endorse a particular answer to these questions, but the article should enhance the reader's ability to develop their own answers in a much more informed way.
In Readings in Applied Ethics, edited by Joseph Capizzi, Angela Knobel, and Peter Koritansky. Catholic University Press, forthcoming.
Opposition to abortion often turns on the idea that human fetuses are persons. In this paper, I develop a version of this approach that highlights the idea that personhood is best understood in normative terms: as soon as we have a human organism, we have an organism that is subject to the norm of rationality, and it is for that reason that we have a person.
Abortion - is the fetus human_.pdf
2020
This paper addresses the question of whether the fetus is human and its effect on the abortion debate. It investigates the concept of "human" and asks whether the concept of human has an essence or is best understood by the idea of family resemblance. It asks whether DNA is the essence of humanity and concludes that it is not and that humanity is best understood using family resemblance involving a range of attributes common to humans. It concludes the fetus does not have the range of attributes that would make it human.
Quietly Conscious: A Discussion of Fetal Personhood and Abortion
2017
Roe vs. Wade was an important victory for American feminists on January 22, 1973; abortion was made legal before the confirmation of fetal viability, and a woman's right to privacy was upheld. But the underlying battle to define the value of human life has been around since the 1 st chapter of history books. Though Ancient Rome saw abortion as an acceptable way to end unwanted pregnancy, a fetus in Ancient Persia was seen as a valuable life, the government taking many measures to prevent unplanned pregnancies and help the mothers who found themselves in difficult situations (Yarmohammadi, Zargaran, Vatanpour, Abedini, Adhami, 2013, pp. 293-296). Currently, the debate for life has maintained its momentum and is as relevant a discussion in our local community as it was back in the Ancient world and the D.C. Courtroom. For the year 2013, Fredericksburg City reported a total live birth amount of 417 matched to a total of 304 abortions ("Health Profile, Fredericksburg City, 2013," 2015). That is, the number of abortions amounted to nearly 73% of live births. I believe that abortion is a life ending procedure that discards the most vulnerable of the world, and though unable to be independent outside the womb, during pregnancy an embryo experiences pain, is the victim of profiling, and may be more human than ever considered before. As humans, one of our noblest instincts is the need to help an innocent being dealing with a great amount of pain. In "Locating the Beginnings of Pain," Steve Derbyshire (1999) theorized that after realistically reviewing scientific data, the development of a fetus is not advanced enough, either consciously or neurologically, to fully experience the feeling of pain, even after birth (p.30). Written as a counterargument to Derbyshire's article, David Benatar's and Michael Benatar's (2001) "A Pain in the Fetus: Toward Ending Confusion about Fetal Pain" argued that by reexamining fetal neural anatomy, the reactions of certain organs to stimuli, and the