When is fetus considered alive

The zygote contains all of the genetic information DNA needed to become a baby. Half the DNA comes from the mother's egg and half from the father's sperm. The zygote spends the next few days traveling down the fallopian tube. During this time, it divides to form a ball of cells called a blastocyst. A blastocyst is made up of an inner group of cells with an outer shell. The inner group of cells will become the embryo. The embryo is what will develop into your baby.

The outer group of cells will become structures, called membranes, which nourish and protect the embryo. Week 4 Once the blastocyst reaches the uterus, it buries itself in the uterine wall. At this point in the mother's menstrual cycle, the lining of the uterus is thick with blood and ready to support a baby. This semantic position leads to the point that we are not authorized to categorize 30 weeks fetus as human being either.

The same semantic position can be taken with regard to 36 weeks fetus. However, it seems that the story changes whenever we are confronted with a newborn, intuitively speaking. In fact, the newborn is categorized as human being by both the proponents and the opponents. Now, if this is the case, then the opponents are confronted with a dilemma. According to the first horn of the dilemma, they could go ahead according to their semantic position and state that a newborn cannot be regarded as human being.

It follows from this that infanticide is morally permissible and justified. In other words, we are authorized to kill the newborn with some reservations in different contexts.

However, it seems that infanticide is, intuitively speaking, immoral. In fact, if they believe that infanticide is immoral and we are not allowed to kill a newborn, then they have to explain us the difference between the fetus and the newborn, which makes a room for the semantic difference we are in search of. As we have seen, there is a significant connection between the metaphysical and the semantic aspects of the issue of abortion.

If we are, semantically speaking, allowed to refer to a newborn as human being, the proponents have to tell an ontological story based on it; then we are authorized to regard the newborn as human being.

However, it seems that these ontological differences are not adequate for the semantic story needed. In fact, the constitutive and fundamental features of the fetus and the newborn are, more or less, the same.

There is a significant difference which is to be noted in the first place. Based upon that, we are, semantically speaking, authorized to regard the newborn as human being. During the pregnancy period, fetus takes different shapes in several steps. For instance, when fetus is 12 weeks, its shape is different from the fetus which is 20 weeks.

But, according to the opponents, these differences do not entail us to refer to different complexes with several names even though in medicine the organism in the first 8 weeks of gestation is called embryo. For instance, we regard the entity which is 9 weeks as fetus. Also, we refer to the entity which is 20 weeks as fetus as well, etc. In fact, we utilize only the same name for different steps with the exception of the first 8 weeks, as mentioned above during the pregnancy period.

Moreover, when 36 weeks fetus is born, it seems that its shape is more or less the same as the shape of a fetus. In short, the opponent is confronted with a dilemma. According to the first horn of the dilemma which is a slippery slope argument, the opponents have to subscribe to infanticide at the end of the day which is morally impermissible, intuitively speaking.

Therefore, the opponents have to give us a metaphysical account in order to substantiate the constitutive difference between fetus and newborn. Otherwise, the first premise is not convincing to be utilized in favour of abortion. Furthermore, in order to make the abovementioned argument more watertight, let us add two more points at this stage.

Rather, the opponents are unable to give us a semantic story required in this respect as well. Estimates run from 50 to 80 percent, and even some implanted embryos spontaneously abort. The woman might never know she was pregnant. Assuming that fertilization and implantation all go perfectly, scientists can reasonably disagree about when personhood begins, says Gilbert.

An embryologist might say gastrulation, which is when an embryo can no longer divide to form identical twins. A neuroscientist might say when one can measure brainwaves. Roe v. Wade allows abortion up to the point a fetus is viable outside the womb. But that's not much help, either. But earlier this year, Bell published a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine showing reasonably good outcomes in preemies born at 22 weeks of gestational age.

Two key technologies have pushed that date: the use of steroids, which can speed up fetal development, and surfactants that prevent lungs from collapsing after birth. Still, setting an absolute cutoff for fetal viability is impossible. British Broadcasting Corporation Home. This article covers a central point in the abortion debate, which is: when does foetus become sufficiently human to have the right to life? Those in favour of abortion often suggest the debate centres upon when the foetus becomes sufficiently human to have the right to life.

Opponents believe the foetus is never anything other than human from conception, and therefore has a right to life from this time. It's a key point in the debate, especially for those involved in drafting laws regulating abortion. Everyone agrees that adult human beings have the right to life. Some people would say that the fertilised cell resulting from conception does not have the right to life. Therefore the right to life is acquired sometime in between those two points, and the big question is 'when?

It's sometimes put in another way as the question "when does life begin? Unfortunately there's no agreement in medicine, philosophy or theology as to what stage of foetal development should be associated with the right to life. That isn't surprising, because the idea that there is a precise moment when a foetus gets the right to live, which it didn't have a few moments earlier, feels very strange. And when you look closely at each of the suggested dates, they do seem either arbitrary or not precise enough to decide whether the unborn should have the right to live.

Nonetheless, as a matter of practicality many abortion laws lay down a stage of pregnancy after which abortion is unlawful because the foetus has a right to life , and the dates chosen are usually based on viability. Because of the difficulty of deciding at what stage a foetus becomes a being with the right to life, some people argue that we should always err in favour of an earlier date.