THE MORAL STATUS OF PREEMBRYOS, EMBRYOS, FETUSES, AND INFANTS

Some have argued that embryos and fetuses have the moral status of per sonhood because of certain criteria that are satisfied during gestatio n. However, these attempts to base personhood during gestation on intr insic characteristics have uniformly been unsuccessful. Within a secul ar framework, another approach to establishing a moral standing for em bryos and fetuses is to argue that we ought to confer some moral statu s upon them. There appear to be two main approaches to defending confe rred moral standing; namely, consequentialist and contractarian argume nts. This article puts forward a consequentialist argument for the con ferred 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 impli cations of this viewpoint for several issues: what is involved in show ing 'respect' for preembryos; and whether it is permissible to create preembryos solely for research.