Certainly, if a newborn baby is entitled to legal protection, then so is a fetus a day, week, and a month before delivery. The only difficulty is identifying the appropriate stage of gestation where medical ethicists define life apart from religious presuppositions.
Modern medical technology is better capable of doing so by reference to specific biological development and neural processes, but in objective principle, the distinction of viability" introduced by the Roe Court makes logical sense.
Ethical Argument Supporting the Roe Decision:
By far, the most relevant basis for evaluating the moral argument on abortion centers on the issue of viability, except that instead of focusing on the survivability of the fetus outside the womb, it emphasizes the ability of the fetus to sense discomfort and pain, and the sufficient degree of development to support the basic perceptual functions that constitute human consciousness.
Strictly objective ethical concern would militate against causing physical pain, irrespective of whether or not a fetus was biologically developed enough to exist outside the womb; on the other hand, the mere fact that a fetus is capable of being sustained through intensive medical intervention required in all instances of substantially premature delivery would not necessarily give rise to a right to that support.
Admittedly, the idea that an organism's capability of perceiving physical discomfort or pain entitles it to protection is not a belief capable of being proved or disproved in a logical sense. Rather, it is suggested simply by the principles of human compassion and empathy. The concern against causing pain is an objective moral principle that needs no basis in religion or law. What is less clear is how that concept applies differently to human beings than to other sentient living beings equally capable of experiencing discomfort and pain.
To the extent that the ability to feel pain grants an automatic 'right" to be free from pain caused by others, animals capable of perceiving pain should also be entitled to moral concern. In fact, in many ways, even non-humans are protected to some degree by laws against animal cruelty and from being killed, even though the distinction between species entitled to protection and those not similarly entitled more often reflects cultural norms than any objective standards. Generally, we are more protective...
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