An Exploration of Maternally Assigned Fetal Personhood: Experiences of Obstetric Ultrasound Keywords: Fetal Personhood, Obstetric Ultrasound, Normative Significance of Birth 1. Australian law states that the fetus is not considered a ‘human being’ until it is completely separated from the woman’s body (Anolak 2014: 61). This idea promotes birth as the beginning of personhood (Mills 2014). In line with this, stillborn and miscarried fetuses over the age of 20 weeks must be legally recognised by funerary rites (Anolak 2014: 61). In 2009 this law was challenged: a woman who was 32 weeks pregnant was involved in a car accident which eventuated in the death of her fetus (Donegan 2013). Although her fetus ‘Zoe’ was recognised as being a person, …show more content…
The existing research relies on objective knowledge generated by legal and scientific means. The aim of this research is to broaden understandings of personhood beyond objective measures, to the subjective attributions of pregnant women. This would… [need a stronger link – 1 – 3 sentences here about why the maternal perspective is the important one!] The significance of coming to understand maternal assignment of fetal personhood is, therefore, critical to the further development of social, legal, and medical understandings of maternal and fetal rights. And necessary to protect the rights of women, and their … of their bodies. The current literature is located primarily within bioethics, law, and … from which there are several key areas of discussion, each with different positions on fetal personhood, how it is defined, and by whom it is attributed. Yet the focus remains on when medical professionals, policy forming bodies, and the law should consider the fetus a person, and in which circumstances the actions of the pregnant woman and ‘others’ can be considered a threat to the fetus and punishable by law. What remains unclear is when pregnant women assign personhood to their fetus. This research proposes to investigate understandings of how personhood arise through the experiences of the medical gaze of obstetric ultrasound. Where obstetric ultrasound is understood to position the fetus as a subject in isolation from the pregnant female body, and as such begins the …show more content…
Mills identifies that obstetric ultrasound is the address which can be seen as directly calling the fetus into being as a person (2014:96-97, 102). She argues that through experiences of ultrasound the fetus is framed in such a way as to bring felicity into question in assigning or withholding of personhood depending on whether the pregnancy is maternally ‘wanted’ and whether it is medically ‘viable’ (2014:96-97). To this end, Mills queries whether assignment of fetal personhood in utero obfuscates the normative significance of birth (2014:99, 102). Mills discussion focuses on the ways in which the fetal personhood debate has been centered around abortion and fetal homicide, and how the role of obstetric ultrasound as a routine part of pregnancy has effectively undermined the normative significance of birth (2014:99-100, 102). Similarly, Roberts argues that the erasure of the body of the gestating woman within fetal ultrasound imagery begins the process of removing the woman from the fetus, and hence, constructing the fetus as an individual (2013:4). This understanding of subjects as separate(d) through the visual technology of obstetric ultrasound is symbolic of a detachment and distancing of the gestating woman from the fetus (2013:7). That is, that ultrasound offers a way of viewing the fetus in isolation from the pregnant body, and as such, makes the fetus the primary obstetric
Though Barbara Hewson thoroughly demonstrates skill and knowledge in the subject of abortion, she takes the subject of many conflicts and turns it into a mess of unpersuasive words. The development of her stance on this subject shows no growth, and although she demonstrated the use of ethos, her article seems to endlessly cover the same information she had already delivered. Her use of logos and pathos is lacking, and what little use of ethos she has gives the reader only basic knowledge, and does not seem to help deliver her point. Hewson’s intended audience, based on her writing, is people of higher educational levels, or rather, those working on higher education in medical fields. Her lack of usage in basic Aristotelian rhetoric resulted
Given that the infant, like any infant, is not a person, as I see it, I think that it’s ethically defensible to say we do not have to continue its life. It doesn’t have a right to life”. It’s a jarring opening statement to say the least,
Don Marquis, a theorist on abortion, debated that abortion was morally wrong and that anti-abortionists should consider fetuses’ human beings (Jones & Kooistra, 2011). He stated the term “prima facie” which is Latin for “at first glance”, which means something is accepted as true unless proven to be untrue (Jones & Kooistra, 2011). In Marquis’s argument he stated that it cannot be proven nor disproven that a fetus is considered a living being.
Summary While anti-abortion legislatures have been passing ‘Women’s Right to Know’ policies for over two decades, a more recent trend has been to add a mandatory viewing of an ultrasound to the state-mandated informed consent procedure. Whereas abortion advocates argue that these laws are unethical and may cause psychological harm to a woman seeking an abortion, the anti-abortion activists stand behind these policies saying that viewing an ultrasound promotes a bond between mother and child and helps the woman to make a more informed decision. Evidence demonstrates that ultrasound viewing does not deter a woman from having an abortion, but may illicit a range of emotional responses, including some negative feelings.
You succinctly described fetal homicide laws and the different standards used. With advances in technology, medicine has taken leap and bounds in being able to see fetuses earlier through ultrasounds and keep fetuses alive who are born prematurely. Therefore, the Born-Alive Standard and the Viability Standard are outdated and difficult to hold to standard due to differences in development between fetuses. As you noted, the Conception Standard should then be utilized as the standard in fetal homicide laws which in turn will provide a strong deterrent towards violence against pregnant women. Utilizing a conception standard will cause disagreement from those who are pro-choice as they view it as infringing on standards established through Roe v. Wade (1973).
Since a fetus is a potential person, then it is seriously
But pro-life advocates argue that when a woman is pregnant, there is another body involved. They argue that the unborn body has the same rights as any other person and has the right to live. Pro-life advocates believe the presence of human life alone defines personhood. An unborn baby is a person just like everyone else that walks on the earth. They may be inside a womb and depended on their mother but they are still people.
Abortion is not only a fluctuating concept in our society, but an ethical and emotional debate, as well. The image I have chosen presents concepts from a cultural and historical background, as well as presents an ethical, emotional, and logical appeal to the audience. The debate about abortion has simply been overblown and exhausted. The truth of the matter is, abortion is murder. Ending a life, whether innocent or guilty, is murder.
In “A Defense of Abortion,” Judith Thomson argues with a unique approach regarding the topic of abortion. For the purpose of the argument, Thomas agrees to go against her belief and constructs an argument based on the idea that the fetus is a person at conception. She then formulates her arguments concerning that the right to life is not an absolute right. There are certain situations where abortion is morally permissible. She believes that the fetus’s right to life does not outweigh the right for the woman to control what happens to her own body.
The debate whether abortion is morally permissible or not permissible is commonly discussed between the considerations of the status of a fetus and ones virtue theory. A widely recognized theory of pro-choice advocates can be thought to be that their ethical view is that fetus’s merely are not humans because they lack the right to life since they believe a fetus does not obtain any sort of mental functions or capability of feelings. Although this may be true in some cases it is not in all so explaining the wrongness of killing, between the common debates whether a fetus does or does not obtain human hood, should be illustrated in a way of a virtuous theory. The wrongness of killing is explained by what the person or fetus is deprived of, such as their right to life; not by means of a heart beat or function of one’s body, but by the fact that it takes their ability of potentially growing into a person to have the same human characteristics as we do.
The worker in this process has neither control over his product nor any agency. A surrogate, like a worker in a factory, has no control and agency over her ‘product’. Her labour too like that of a worker is ‘alienated’ because of the fact of relinquishment. Private clinics in a capitalist society, which supposedly are in charge of the entire process negate and exploit the labour put in by the surrogate mother simultaneously obtaining the entire profit. Because of the lack of legal intervention, the amount of compensation received by the surrogate remains extremely
However, in most cases it is the embryo that is aborted and not a fetus, which is the stage in which the embryo starts to develop. As such an embryo cannot be written in statistics as a life lived as it is dependent solely on the carrier, thus aborting at this stage technically should not be considered as the taking of life but as a decision on whether to facilitate this possible life. Personhood begins after a fetus is able to survive outside the womb, not at conception. Conclusion
The debate is: is ‘personhood’ achieved at the time of fertilization or is it acquired gradually on birth? On one hand, while religious traditions have for long strongly hold on its beliefs on this subject, the recent socio-political and legal opinions on the subject have failed to reach a consensus. To begin with the religious view-point, the Catechism 2270 says “Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which are the inviolable right of every innocent being to life”, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.” Thus, the notion here is that personhood in a being begins as soon as the being is conceived and the acknowledgment of this quality in the being is not dependent upon its birth.
Bioethics have stepped in to many people’s train of thoughts during the pregnancy stage. When the Bible, God’s word, says that the human life begin from the beginning, then it is true. When the Scientific evidence, says that the human life begins from the beginning of fertilization, then it is true. It is hard to argue against the two strongest and most reliable sources in life, especially when they do indeed say the same thing. Life begins in the womb, from 46 carefully crafted and chosen chromosomes.
For each fertilization procedure, several eggs will be collected and fertilized. At the end more than one embryo will be formed. Shannon (1988) doubts whether who can have the right to manage the extra embryos produced, because embryos are the precursor of human beings. Though they are not human, they have the potential to develop into an individual. This article may be considered as an old source, but the above argument appears to be valid as this moral concern is still applicable to today’s situation.