When is a fetus Considered "Alive?"
...Many pro-life groups claim humanity at the moment of conception. Thus, by definition, a zygote (pictured above) has a right to life.
Like moral personhood and the definition of "right to life," this issue is a key point in the abortion debate .
If a zygote does not maintain a "right to life," but an adult human does, the acquisition of this right occurs sometime between those two points. If life is treasured, when does it begin? Medicine, philosophy, and religion all disagree on this issue.
Considering the idea that there is a precise time when a fetus acquires the right to live sounds strange, however, many state abortion laws ban abortion after a certain point in pregnancy. These laws are based on the viability of the fetus. Because of the difficulty of determining at what stage a fetus becomes a being with the right to life, some people argue that we should err in favor of an earlier date so that our uncertainty will not harm the fetus. Others say that if a fetus is not a person, then abortion deserves no condemnation. This is somewhat of an oversimplification.
Stages of fetal development (BBC, 2013):
Fertilization
Implantation
'Quickening'
This is when the fetus first moves in the womb--about 16 to 17 weeks after fertilization. The idea came from a now abandoned Christian theory that this was the moment that the fetus acquired its soul.
Aristotle's Theory
Aristotle suggested 40 days (males), 90 days (females) was the time.
Tissue separation
Brain activity
Some people believe life begins at the first sign of brain activity.
Viability of the fetus
Other people take the view that life begins at the stage when the fetus could survive outside the womb.
Birth
In the end, vagueness is a virtue. As we've seen, there are difficulties with choosing a precise point when the unborn gets the right to live. Although it's uncomfortable to be so imprecise, the right answer may lie in accepting that there are degrees of right to life, and the fetus gets a stronger right to life as it develops. This answer has the value of reflecting the way many people feel about things when they consider abortion: the more developed the fetus, the more unhappy they are about aborting it, and the more weight they give the rights of the fetus in comparison with the rights of the mother. This view is sometimes called 'gradualism'.
Image:
<https://kumquatwriter.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/carnegie-stages-of-human-development.jpg>
Like moral personhood and the definition of "right to life," this issue is a key point in the abortion debate .
If a zygote does not maintain a "right to life," but an adult human does, the acquisition of this right occurs sometime between those two points. If life is treasured, when does it begin? Medicine, philosophy, and religion all disagree on this issue.
Considering the idea that there is a precise time when a fetus acquires the right to live sounds strange, however, many state abortion laws ban abortion after a certain point in pregnancy. These laws are based on the viability of the fetus. Because of the difficulty of determining at what stage a fetus becomes a being with the right to life, some people argue that we should err in favor of an earlier date so that our uncertainty will not harm the fetus. Others say that if a fetus is not a person, then abortion deserves no condemnation. This is somewhat of an oversimplification.
Stages of fetal development (BBC, 2013):
Fertilization
- The moment of fertilization is an entirely logical point to choose as the beginning of human life.
- It's one of the few points that isn't arbitrary or difficult to judge, as an egg is either fertilized or not.
- At this point the fertilized egg has begun to develop into a separate and unique human being and contains the full genetic code of a human being.
- Not a very good argument, since so do all the cells of the body
- It's the beginning of a process of development and maturation that doesn't end until the individual naturally dies, or is killed, but it only marks the beginning of biological life.
- Some people believe that biological life is not sufficient to give the fetus the right to life.
Implantation
- The moment when the fertilized egg is implanted in the womb. This happens about a week after conception.
- This point is easy to identify, but it is just as arbitrary as any other date.
'Quickening'
This is when the fetus first moves in the womb--about 16 to 17 weeks after fertilization. The idea came from a now abandoned Christian theory that this was the moment that the fetus acquired its soul.
- Example: St. Augustine made a distinction between embryo inanimatus, not yet endowed with a soul, and embryo animatus, endowed with a soul. Without "ensoulment", quickening does not seem to have any merit as the start time for human rights.
- Medically, the time of quickening is influenced by irrelevant factors, such as the number of previous pregnancies that the mother has had.
Aristotle's Theory
Aristotle suggested 40 days (males), 90 days (females) was the time.
- These are purely arbitrary times - and there's certainly no reason for males and females to get the right to life at different stages of development.
- The idea itself came out of Aristotle's three-stage theory of life: vegetable, animal, rational. The vegetable stage was reached at conception, the animal at 'animation', and the rational soon after live birth.
Tissue separation
- This is the time when tissues in the fetus separate into different types. This covers a lengthy period of time
- Tissue type separation doesn't seem to have any obvious moral implications - so the choice of this as the key date is probably because the increasingly human appearance of the fetus causes us to feel increasingly protective of the fetus.
Brain activity
Some people believe life begins at the first sign of brain activity.
- This is a logical point, as it marks a necessary state for many of the characteristics that some people think a 'moral person' has to possess, but brain activity at this stage is no more than a precondition - it doesn't demonstrate that the fetus is actually 'conscious.'
Viability of the fetus
Other people take the view that life begins at the stage when the fetus could survive outside the womb.
- This is the most common criterion used in drafting laws regulating abortion.
- Whether a fetus can survive outside the womb depends on:
- the state of medical science
- the medical facilities available at a particular location
- the competence or willingness of the mother (or some other care-giver)
- the gender of the fetus
- the race of the fetus
- There is something unsatisfactory about a being's rights being determined by its sex or race, the state of medical science, the state of medical facilities at a particular location, or the type of mother it has.
Birth
- This appears to be a clear and unambiguous date, but there is disagreement on the point at when a baby is actually born. Is it:
- when part of the baby is outside the mother's body?
- when the whole baby is outside the mother's body?
- or when the placenta separates from the womb and the fetus has to rely on its own resources to keep alive?
- Some people say that it's odd that a being's right to life should depend on whether a being is located inside or outside the womb, but they miss the essential point which is that at birth the baby begins to exist independently of the mother
In the end, vagueness is a virtue. As we've seen, there are difficulties with choosing a precise point when the unborn gets the right to live. Although it's uncomfortable to be so imprecise, the right answer may lie in accepting that there are degrees of right to life, and the fetus gets a stronger right to life as it develops. This answer has the value of reflecting the way many people feel about things when they consider abortion: the more developed the fetus, the more unhappy they are about aborting it, and the more weight they give the rights of the fetus in comparison with the rights of the mother. This view is sometimes called 'gradualism'.
Image:
<https://kumquatwriter.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/carnegie-stages-of-human-development.jpg>