Moral Status of a Fetus

Moral Status of a Fetus During previous years questions have been raced about abortion. There have been views from individuals in certain religious groups that feel like a child is a gift from god and should not be killed do to the lack of responsibility of the parent. Some people have even said that there is nothing wrong with abortion and are prochoice. There have even been debates on whether or not there should be laws prohibiting abortion. The real question that has crossed many minds is whether or not all arguments about abortion come down to what the moral status of the fetus is. In fact in most cases the moral status of the fetus is what renders people to question whether it was a living human being when it was aborted, regardless of whether or not it could speak the written language to defend its own life. Moral issues over a woman’s fetus have raised questions through the growth of the child within its mother. The moral status of a fetus becomes dangerous ground do to all the new technology and modern medicine that was created to help those who have a hard time carrying a child full term to those women who can’t conceive at all. David Paintin, writer of the article “Ethical Issues in Maternal — Fetal Medicine,” states that;

“It is not ‘new life’—the intracellular biological processes of the fetus are in direct continuity with those of the women, with the man adding only his half of the chromosomal genes. The fetus acquires moral status progressively throughout pregnancy, a progress that is marked by developmental milestones such as formation of the neural tube, completion of macroscopic organogenesis, functional maturation of lungs, liver and kidneys, increasing electrical maturation of the cerebral cortex, and then birth itself. Increasing moral status is also marked by the bonding that results from the woman's growing awareness of the fetus, and