Biomedical Ethics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Biomedical Ethics - Essay Example Where Mary Anne Warren maintains that legal rights should not be extended to fetuses as doing so would violate women’s rights such as the right to self-determination for one, I concur that it would prove difficult to protect individual persons who share one body. This was evident in the Supreme Court’s decision in the Case of Ms. G (Thomas & Waluchow, 2002). The ruling further supports Warren’s position on the issue. I will conclude the paper stating that a fetus is also a person and thus deserves our moral respect but any right it may have comes only second to a higher right, that of the woman who bears it. This may sound harsh but it will be best to remember, as history has shown us with slavery, apartheid & abortion, that what is legal isn’t always going to be moral. For the subject of this paper, I will be treating a fetus’ moral right separately from its legal right. In discussing why birth, not conception, is morally significant, Mary Ann Warren presented several opposing assumptions. Believers of the intrinsic-properties assumption find that birth does not change any intrinsic properties of a fetus. Both fetuses & newborn infants almost have the same intrinsic properties. According to one believer, only the capacity of sentience, or being responsive, and the degree of such is a valid basis for moral standing. Warren argues other species would have a higher moral standing than infants if proven that these species are highly sentient. She further says that if the sentient criterion is true then all sentient beings should be treated as moral equals. Therefore, killing other sentient beings such as a mouse or a fly should be considered as immoral as killing an infant. Another philosopher claims that unless a being is capable of wanting to exist, it can’t have a right to life. Since neither an infant nor a fetus is self-aware then killing them wouldn’t be inherently