Strong C
Department of Human Values and Ethics, College of Medicine, University of Tennessee, Memphis 38163, USA.
J Med Philos. 1997 Oct;22(5):457-78. doi: 10.1093/jmp/22.5.457.
Some have argued that embryos and fetuses have the moral status of personhood because of certain criteria that are satisfied during gestation. However, these attempts to base personhood during gestation on intrinsic characteristics have uniformly been unsuccessful. Within a secular framework, another approach to establishing a moral standing for embryos and fetuses is to argue that we ought to confer some moral status upon them. There appear to be two main approaches to defending conferred moral standing; namely, consequentialist and contractarian arguments. This article puts forward a consequentialist argument for the conferred moral standing of preembryos, embryos, fetuses, and infants. It states and defends an original version of the commonly-held view that moral standing increases during gestation. It also explores the implications of this viewpoint for several issues: what is involved in showing 'respect' for preembryos; and whether it is permissible to create preembryos solely for research.
一些人认为，胚胎和胎儿具有人格的道德地位，因为在妊娠期满足了某些标准。然而，这些基于内在特征在妊娠期确定人格的尝试都无一成功。在世俗框架内，为胚胎和胎儿确立道德地位的另一种方法是主张我们应该赋予它们某种道德地位。捍卫赋予的道德地位似乎有两种主要方法；即后果主义论证和契约主义论证。本文提出了一种关于赋予前胚胎、胚胎、胎儿和婴儿道德地位的后果主义论证。它陈述并捍卫了一种普遍观点的原创版本，即道德地位在妊娠期会提高。它还探讨了这一观点对几个问题的影响：对前胚胎表示“尊重”涉及哪些方面；以及仅为研究而创造前胚胎是否可允许。
