does a fetus have rights?

[Pandaemoni]

we're studying abortion in my ethics class, and the main questions with abortion are two simple ones:

1) Does a fetus have rights like a newborn child?

2) Is an unborn child an innocent human being?

If pro-lifers can prove any of these two questions, than they succeed in proving that abortion is wrong. And vice versa, pro-choicers can prove its upto the mother if they can prove any of these questions otherwise.

what do you guys think?

I think the only rights anyone has are the rights the society grants him or her. I understand that there are:

rights I *want* to have,
rights I *want* others to have,
rights I do not want to have, and
rights I do not want others to have.

That said, nothing about my wants and desires is fundamental to the universe. If I want a cheesesteak, yet do not have one, in no sense can one claim, really, on a metaphysical level, I *do* have a cheesesteak. The same goes for the love of a beautiful woman. The same goes for "rights."

Unless one believes there is some objective universal standard by which these things are defined (in which case: prove it), then all one has is reality, where society clearly dictates what you and others may and may not do.

Fetuses are in the same boat. If socety pretended that doors are alive and made kicking through a door a capital crime, then it would be fair to say that doors have rights too.

All you really have with fetuses is the question, "Do you feel, or does the source of morality you ignore your own feelings in favor of indicate, that fetuses have the same rights as infants." My guess is that the answers will break down more or less precisely the same way as would the answer to the question: Do you support the right to have abortions?

 

[spidergoat]

I believe that life does start at conception,....

The idea that there is a human being inside you must start as soon as you learn you are pregnant, but I feel the line must be drawn where the foetus starts showing distinctly human qualities, or where the mother's life is threatened.

 

[BenTheMan]

You think there's a single moment that a foetus becomes a person?

Do you not?

For the purposes of argument, surely this should be the case. Otherwise you just sweep the problem under the rug.

there are only two destint cut off points you could chose, birth and conception. The
"pro life" lobby would like to chose conception (wonder what there opinion on ectopic pregancys are), i chose bith because any where before that you are looking at "what happens if its a day after ...." which is silly.

spidergoat gave a good criteria, I think. You have no problems with the cases where late term fetuses have survived the abortion procedure? Or the fact that the fetus has developed nervous system to the point where it exhibits a response to pain at 24 weeks?

Why should we who arnt in there shoes be setting arbatary limits on it when we have no idea of the circumstances they find themselves in

In many European countries, there are "Duty to Rescue" laws---that is, if one person witnesses another in peril, he must attempt to rescue the person in danger. I've never been in this situation, but I don't have a problem with a law that says "If you are in this situation, this is what you should do."

 

[StrangerInAStrangeLand]

It'a all arbitrary.

 

[Carico]

we're studying abortion in my ethics class, and the main questions with abortion are two simple ones:

1) Does a fetus have rights like a newborn child?

2) Is an unborn child an innocent human being?

If pro-lifers can prove any of these two questions, than they succeed in proving that abortion is wrong. And vice versa, pro-choicers can prove its upto the mother if they can prove any of these questions otherwise.

what do you guys think?

What a ridiculous question! If most people don't think that a fetus has rights, then you probably wouldn't even be here to ask that question. You would have been aborted at the whim of your mother.

 

[Carico]

we're studying abortion in my ethics class, and the main questions with abortion are two simple ones:

1) Does a fetus have rights like a newborn child?

2) Is an unborn child an innocent human being?

If pro-lifers can prove any of these two questions, than they succeed in proving that abortion is wrong. And vice versa, pro-choicers can prove its upto the mother if they can prove any of these questions otherwise.

what do you guys think?

What a ridiculous question! If most people don't think that a fetus has rights, then you probably wouldn't even be here to ask that question. You would have been aborted at the whim of your mother. Depriving anyone of the right to life for the sole reason that he's a nuisance is called murder. Our society is becoming more depraved by the hour. Then they're stupid enough to wonder why there's a hell.

 

[spidergoat]

Eternity with people like you is hell.

 

[Carico]

Eternity with people like you is hell.

Then you'll go to hell and I'll go to heaven. Then we'll both be happy.

 

[camilus]

What a ridiculous question! If most people don't think that a fetus has rights, then you probably wouldn't even be here to ask that question. You would have been aborted at the whim of your mother. Depriving anyone of the right to life for the sole reason that he's a nuisance is called murder. Our society is becoming more depraved by the hour. Then they're stupid enough to wonder why there's a hell.

,

LOl seriously, you're an idiot, please get off this thread. You didnt even attempt to answer any of the questions, and what you said is completely irrelevant.

Eternity with people like you is hell.

Tell me about it lmfaoo

I believe that life does start at conception, but like what James said. The more developed the fetus is the more people feel a connect to it. When I worked at the clinic there was a woman who came in and had a choice to make. It was her life or the baby's. This woman's misshapen uterus had her baby located somewhere underneath her ribcage and none of the doctor's could figure out how they could get the baby out with potentially killing the mother. She wanted an abortion from the start so, this was just good news for her, but her mother made her keep the baby because she believed it was murder, but when she found out the baby's growth might kill her daughter all of the sudden the baby wasn't the "baby" anymore. The "baby" became "it". It seems like the value placed on someone's life is the pain it would cause those who know that person if they were to die. No one knows the unborn baby and no one except for the mother possibly has formed any real attachments to it. When my aunt had a miscarriage all i felt was What a pity, that's too bad. But if my cousin had died I think I would have cared a lot more. I actually know him, I didn't know my aunt's unborn daughter, so I don't miss her.

So do you believe there is a defining line between when abortion is right and when it's wrong? If so, when is that magical line? At conception? or when the baby begins to have a heart beat? or when it begins to look human? When its starts developing brain waves/patterns and activity like that of a normal adult human being?

 

[Thrylix]

No, it didn't even enter into the world yet. It's just a sleeping thing that may or many not one day wake up.

 

[CutsieMarie89]

,
So do you believe there is a defining line between when abortion is right and when it's wrong? If so, when is that magical line? At conception? or when the baby begins to have a heart beat? or when it begins to look human? When its starts developing brain waves/patterns and activity like that of a normal adult human being?

I said life begins at conception. I think it's hard to deny that constantly replicating cells are not alive. However I don't feel much more of a connection something that looks more like bacteria or some strange growth than I do with actual bacteria. There is no magical line, it's sort of just a feeling, like knowing when something is porn. Since these feelings differ from person to person I am Pro-Choice. My choice may not be your choice and I wouldn't hold you to my choice until society forces you to uphold a certain standard. Most people consider a 5 year old a living being, therefore it is because society says so. If most people believed that a fertilized egg is a person then it would be, but most people don't. That's why you don't have to call the police on your wife if she has a miscarriage.

 

[Pandaemoni]

What a ridiculous question! If most people don't think that a fetus has rights, then you probably wouldn't even be here to ask that question. You would have been aborted at the whim of your mother.

Huh? Are you serious? Do computers have rights? No???? But if computers have no rights, they would be destroyed on the whims of their owners! Ergo, by your logic, either computers don't exist, or they have the right not to be destroyed. You see the problem.

People *sometimes* destroy things on a whim, but that people have the right to do something on a whim, does not mean that they actually choose to do so.

 

[Tiassa]

(Insert title here)

From the Opinion of the Court, Roe v. Wade (410 U.S. 113):

Texas urges that, apart from the Fourteenth Amendment, life begins at conception and is present throughout pregnancy, and that, therefore, the State has a compelling interest in protecting that life from and after conception. We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.

It should be sufficient to note briefly the wide divergence of thinking on this most sensitive and difficult question. There has always been strong support for the view that life does not begin until live' birth. This was the belief of the Stoics. It appears to be the predominant, though not the unanimous, attitude of the Jewish faith. It may be taken to represent also the position of a large segment of the Protestant community, insofar as that can be ascertained; organized groups that have taken a formal position on the abortion issue have generally regarded abortion as a matter for the conscience of the individual and her family. As we have noted, the common law found greater significance in quickening. Physician and their scientific colleagues have regarded that event with less interest and have tended to focus either upon conception, upon live birth, or upon the interim point at which the fetus becomes "viable," that is, potentially able to live outside the mother's womb, albeit with artificial aid. Viability is usually placed at about seven months (28 weeks) but may occur earlier, even at 24 weeks. The Aristotelian theory of "mediate animation," that held sway throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in Europe, continued to be official Roman Catholic dogma until the 19th century, despite opposition to this "ensoulment" theory from those in the Church who would recognize the existence of life from the moment of conception. The latter is now, of course, the official belief of the Catholic Church. As one brief amicus discloses, this is a view strongly held by many non-Catholics as well, and by many physicians. Substantial problems for precise definition of this view are posed, however, by new embryological data that purport to indicate that conception is a "process" over time, rather than an event, and by new medical techniques such as menstrual extraction, the "morning-after" pill, implantation of embryos, artificial insemination, and even artificial wombs.

In areas other than criminal abortion, the law has been reluctant to endorse any theory that life, as we recognize it, begins before live birth, or to accord legal rights to the unborn except in narrowly defined situations and except when the rights are contingent upon live birth. For example, the traditional rule of tort law denied recovery for prenatal injuries even though the child was born alive. That rule has been changed in almost every jurisdiction. In most States, recovery is said to be permitted only if the fetus was viable, or at least quick, when the injuries were sustained, though few courts have squarely so held. In a recent development, generally opposed by the commentators, some States permit the parents of a stillborn child to maintain an action for wrongful death because of prenatal injuries. Such an action, however, would appear to be one to vindicate the parents' interest and is thus consistent with the view that the fetus, at most, represents only the potentiality of life. Similarly, unborn children have been recognized as acquiring rights or interests by way of inheritance or other devolution of property, and have been represented by guardians ad litem. Perfection of the interests involved, again, has generally been contingent upon live birth. In short, the unborn have never been recognized in the law as persons in the whole sense.

(Blackmun)

The above comes from section IX.B. On a related note, the first part of section VI of the Court's opinion states,

It perhaps is not generally appreciated that the restrictive criminal abortion laws in effect in a majority of States today are of relatively recent vintage. Those laws, generally proscribing abortion or its attempt at any time during pregnancy except when necessary to preserve the pregnant woman's life, are not of ancient or even of common law origin. Instead, they derive from statutory changes effected, for the most part, in the latter half of the 19th century.

(ibid)

In other words, the question of life at conception in the context of abortion arises in a context that is both recent and political. The transformation of perspective from the traditional and speculative to the modern and aesthetic is one begged by political developments. That is, the question did not demand a political reconsideration, but new political considerations demanded the question.

Beyond all that, though, I find the question fairly abstract. In terms of an ethics class, such as our topic poster has noted, I would suggest that the questions presented do not exist in a vacuum, but must also be measured according to how the various proposed answers relate to existing society. For instance, and only to underscore the point dramatically, should a mother unable to get an abortion be able to file a declaration that the pregnancy is unwanted, and thus demand of the baby compensation for services rendered? After all, few if any rights come without attendant responsibilities. Those of us who walk outside the womb only enjoy our right to life if we have a means of sustaining it. That is, we must at least eat and breathe and so forth, else we will die. Our right to free speech does not extend to lying in order to cause chaos and harm, nor does it include a right to falsely defame another. Our right to bear arms does not mean we get to shoot anyone we feel like for whatever reason suits us. Nor does it mean we get to detonate a nuclear weapon in order to burn the ass of the stupid punk stealing our car stereo.

If the fetus has rights, what are the attendant responsibilities?

If the fetus is regarded as a whole human being and thus entitled to a full complement of rights, how do law and society regard the mother?
____________________

Notes:

Blackmun, J. Harry. "Opinion of the Court". Roe v. Wade (410 U.S. 113). United States Supreme Court. January 22, 1973. http://straylight.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0410_0113_ZO.html

 

[camilus]

In general, yes.

I would have the same problem with the woman killing a fetus the day before it is born naturally as with her killing it the day after birth. At either of these times, the baby is viable for life independent of the mother outside the womb. The same cannot be said at much earlier stages of pregnancy.

I sort of agree with that, but I was asking the question in a much different context.

What makes human life so special, in your opinion, such that we need to grant a whole different set of rights to life to humans compared to cows?

This is a ridiculously obvious question James. Human consciousness and thought is much higher and can probably even reach places science will never reach, and that makes Human thought supreme in this universe. Unless you want to argue other intelligent life out there. Im just saying, as far as we know.

You think cows can't think? Are you familiar with cows? Have you ever spent any reasonable length of time with them? Individual cows are as individual as you or I. They aren't unthinking robots. They have desires. They like some things more than others. They enjoy being alive, I can assure you.

Read post above. Cows think but to a certain, very limited extent as compared to human beings.

Is having the potential to get a driver's licence the same as having one?

I said the same thing many posts ago.

So, are the rights one gets as a foetus in the womb a subset of the rights one is granted at birth? Or not?

you just re-asked my first question...?

 

[camilus]

I said life begins at conception. I think it's hard to deny that constantly replicating cells are not alive. However I don't feel much more of a connection something that looks more like bacteria or some strange growth than I do with actual bacteria. There is no magical line, it's sort of just a feeling, like knowing when something is porn. Since these feelings differ from person to person I am Pro-Choice. My choice may not be your choice and I wouldn't hold you to my choice until society forces you to uphold a certain standard. Most people consider a 5 year old a living being, therefore it is because society says so. If most people believed that a fertilized egg is a person then it would be, but most people don't. That's why you don't have to call the police on your wife if she has a miscarriage.

I understand what you're saying, but it is completely irrelevant.

Although, would you be willing to argue that it is at conception that life begins at conception because that i when I guess you could say God unifies the Body and Soul? Because that's just a religious approach and would be, ya know..

 

[one_raven]

We should give them the vote.
Fetus Suffrage is discrimination!