PHIL 2070 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Fetus, Euthanasia
Document Summary
Because (a) a fetus is not a person. Far from it: a fetus is not even sentient. In the first trimester, the fetus is not sentient. So, if there"s no sentient then we can"t say that this fetus is a person (b) abortion is killing a fetus and therefore, killing a non-sentient being. Premise a and b are pretty plausible (c) if a being is not sentient, then there is no moral reason against killing it. Mackles think that that baby has a future like ours so it"s wrong to end that person"s life and to take that future away from somebody: sadness of pre-mature death. When you hear about someone young people say they were so young". But when you hear about old people there"s no equivalency even though it"s still bad. Because the young person has so much life ahead of them: moral irrelevance of being human.