Essay On Foetal Personhood

As the name suggests, the arguments for foetal personhood classified under this label treat the morally significant characteristics, not as intrinsic (essential) but acquired (non-essential) properties of the foetus. In these arguments, the foetus is not a kind of being whose nature is to have by necessity the morally significant characteristics. These characteristics are a possibility in so far as they are only acquired at a particular point in time in the life of the foetus. As non-essential or possible characteristics, these can also be lost in the life of the foetus or a mature adult. If and only if the foetus possesses these characteristics, then it can be qualified as a person. If the foetus does exhibit these characteristics at a particular moment, it follows that it should not be killed at that moment. …show more content…
This qualification for personhood is not related to specie membership, properties, attributes, identities or potentialities as mentioned in earlier cases, but simply rests on the actual possession of the morally significant characteristics. If one can recognize the particular set of characteristics for being considered as a person in an individual entity, then the decision of conferring personhood on that individual entity is straightforward. There are several arguments based on this criterion which propose the kind of characteristics one should look out for in a person. These arguments have one thing in common: foetuses are not person from the beginning but they acquire personhood and become a person at certain point in time. Below, we are going to address six examples how foetuses’ personhood can be interpreted in terms of acquired personhood. Then we propose two versions of personhood argument by Warren and Tooley, following with the Boonin's improved desire