When does a human foetus have a right to life?

Ivor the Engineer

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Ivor the Engineer
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Currently the limit on abortion in the UK is set at 24 weeks because the state of medical technology makes it unlikely for foetuses of younger gestational age to survive. This appears to be the point where a human foetus is considered to have a right to life (but still less than the mother's right to life).

What if in the future technology advanced so that foetuses of much younger gestational age could survive outside the womb. Would and/or should the limit on abortion be correspondingly reduced?
 
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Yes. I think so. But I am dead against abortion anyway, except for medical grounds and rape. I know, this is rather an unpopular position.
I will not tell others not to abort if they wish, but it would not be an option if I was the father of the child. My wife has the exact same stance, so even if she would become "accidentally" pregnant, we would not abort.
 
In my opinion it would be more logical to base this on the presence of cortical brain activity rather than viability.
 
Can anyone logically defend the supposition that it has a "right to life" at all?
 
Elaedith said:
In my opinion it would be more logical to base this on the presence of cortical brain activity rather than viability.
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Even knowing that there is a high probability the foetus would develop normal cortical brain activity in the foreseeable future?
 
Soapy Sam said:
Can anyone logically defend the supposition that it has a "right to life" at all?
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No, but I can't logically defend the supposition that you or I have a right to life either.

But given that we do currently give a foetus a right to life past some age based on the ability medical technology to keep it alive outside the mother, should the advancement of that technology reduce the age at which abortion is allowed indefinitely?

Taking it to the extreme, what if a foetus could develop outside the womb virtually from the point of conception, but with a higher risk of death or serious disability than if left to grow inside the mother. Would elective abortion then be made illegal (except for some exceptional cases)?
 
Ivor the Engineer said:
Even knowing that there is a high probability the foetus would develop normal cortical brain activity in the foreseeable future?
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If you could regenerate an entirely new brain/person inside a brain-dead human body, I don't see why it would be wrong to terminate the life of the body before the new brain develops. This is not the same as the potential for recovery of the brain of a person who had already existed.
 
Elaedith said:
If you could regenerate an entirely new brain/person inside a brain-dead human body, I don't see why it would be wrong to terminate the life of the body before the new brain develops. This is not the same as the potential for recovery of the brain of a person who had already existed.
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Why not? What do you think is relevant about a person's prior existence which makes a significant difference?
 
Ivor the Engineer said:
Why not? What do you think is relevant about a person's prior existence which makes a significant difference?
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To a person who is currently not conscious of their existence it doesn't make any difference, of course, because they know nothing about it.

There are other reasons that most people think it wrong to painlessly terminate the life of a person while they are unaware because of being unconscious. A lot of that probably has to do with not wanting to feel at risk of having our own lives or the lives of people we care about terminated. We want people to act as though human life is sacred because we think it will reduce the risk of ourselves or people we care about being killed. If somebody suffers brain injury we want the person that existed back, and we hope we would recover if we suffered brain injury. We don't worry about what will happen in the foetal state because we won't be in that state.

Most people would not consider it important to use a biologically alive but brain-dead body to regenerate a new brain. It would be considered a higher priority to donate the organs to save the life of a person who already exists ie. You could argue that there is no rational reason for this, but basing foetal 'rights' on brain activity seems more consistent with it.
 
While I support a womans right to choose I'd just as soon have her choice to be to have the baby. In cases of rape or other problems such as when the woman or girls life is in danger sure go ahead and terminate the pregnancy but if the conception is the result of consentual sex then i wish shed have the child. She doesn't have to because its her choice but like I said. I wish shed have the baby.
 
I'm all about pro-choice until the 3rd trimester--then it's a bit iffy and I don't like to think too much about it. Thankfully 3rd trimester abortions are rarely done, one source (following the wiki links under late term abortion) states a little over 1,000 a year.
 
A foetus is a parasite. As such it has no intrinsic right to life. It is only potential life.
 
Honestly, I'm really unsure. I'd personally never want to have a late-term abortion, but I doubt any of the woman who do end up having one because they couldn't be bothered earlier, I know quite a few are because of severe birth defects that have been found and then you get the rare cases where women don't know they are pregnant for months on end. But also if the initial medical professional they approach was against abortion, then they can obstruct women's access to abortion and lead to delays. I guess I just can't imagine telling any woman that they had to continue to have this thing inside them against their will.

I also feel that cut off dates are a bit of a distraction topic and I think health professionals and law-makers would do better to improve early access to abortion and ensure that women know what their options are and that this would probably reduce late term abortions without the need to keep altering cut-off dates to keep up with medical technology.

I don't think foetuses can gain any rights until birth, but that's not to say I think abortions right up to term are fine. I guess I just feel that since most medical professionals and other people always agree that the mother's health and well-being comes first, then it's a bit of a lie to say the foetus has rights if they can be over-ridden. I always assumed that when it came to rights, no ones can trump someone elses.
 
Cainkane1 said:
While I support a womans right to choose I'd just as soon have her choice to be to have the baby. In cases of rape or other problems such as when the woman or girls life is in danger sure go ahead and terminate the pregnancy but if the conception is the result of consentual sex then i wish shed have the child. She doesn't have to because its her choice but like I said. I wish shed have the baby.
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This pretty much seems to be the prevailing view amongst most people.
Basically, "Don't use abortion as a form of birth control. You've been raped, or incest (via rape), an abortion should be allowed. The woman doesn't have to have an abortion in that scenario, but, that's the only time an abortion should be allowed."

Does a fetus have a right to life?
As someone else said, Right to Life might need to be defined a little bit more.
 
Travis said:
A foetus is a parasite. As such it has no intrinsic right to life. It is only potential life.
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No it isn't. There are actual medical benefits for the mother (which makes sense), and the argument is faulty, since it does not even get there by its own will or strength or instinctual desire (or whatever you would like to call it).
And I have yet to hear of a parasite where the host provides 50% of the parts. I would be happy to be corrected, if you can show me another example.
 
I always liked the good old question:

You are in a room in a clinic that is on fire. There is a 6 year old kid lying to your left. There is a jar with 100 fetuses to your right. You can only save one. Which do you grab?
 
GrandMasterFox said:
I always liked the good old question:

You are in a room in a clinic that is on fire. There is a 6 year old kid lying to your left. There is a jar with 100 fetuses to your right. You can only save one. Which do you grab?
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I slap the kid awake, hand him or her the jar to hold and pick the kid up.:p

BTW, the OP is not really about mother's vs. foetuses rights, but whether or not the viability of a foetus to survive outside the womb (which is based on the level of medical technology) is a sensible factor to use to determine a time limit upto which point an abortion can be performed.
 
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