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Assisted reproductive technology (ART), which encompasses fertility treatments in which eggs or embryos are handled, is a frontier of family law and reproductive justice, and developments in abortion jurisprudence may shape its borders. Abortion restrictions and other laws regulating pregnant people are often framed with rhetoric emphasizing fetal personhood or fetal rights. Now that abortion is legally unshielded from criminalization, the consequences of Dobbs will reach, as did fetal-personhood laws before, even those who are not seeking abortions. As commentators have observed, this collateral damage threatens to touch potential parents seeking to use ART. Yet so far, the most abortion-restrictive states tend to carve out protections for ART from their laws regarding fetuses. This Note argues that states touting fetal personhood protect ART users--while persecuting people who partake in a multitude of other types of conduct thought to harm fetuses--because ART furthers the creation of white, affluent families that suit these states' normative values. Fetal personhood, then, is a tool for social control. Advocates of reproductive freedom should surface this truth in efforts to stave off the proliferation of fetal-personhood laws at the state and federal levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Alabama Supreme Court recently held, in LePage v. Center for Reproductive Medicine, that the parents of human embryos that were negligently destroyed at a fertility clinic could bring an action for damages under the State's wrongful death statute. Although the Alabama legislature promptly enacted a law essentially overturning the state supreme court's decision, concerns have been raised that the court's decision might influence courts in other States to interpret their wrongful death statutes, or possibly even their fetal homicide statutes, to apply in similar circumstances, thereby threatening the availability of in vitro fertilization (IVF) technology. This article addresses those concerns. With respect to wrongful death statutes, only fourteen States (excluding Alabama) have interpreted their statutes to apply to unborn children without regard to their stage of gestation or development. The majority of States impose a gestational requirement (typically, viability) which would preclude their application to the destruction of human embryos. Even with respect to the minority of States that impose no limitation on the cause of action, those statutes, either by their express language or by fair interpretation, would not apply to unimplanted human embryos. With respect to the fetal homicide statutes in thirty-one States that do not have any gestational or developmental limitation, the statutes in twenty-six of those States apply only to acts causing the death of an unborn child in utero. As to the statutes in the other five States, the structure of the statute, considered in light of the applicable case law, strongly suggests that there would be no liability for causing the death of an unborn child before implantation. In sum, the Alabama Supreme Court's decision in LePage is not likely to be followed as a precedent in interpreting either the wrongful death statutes or the fetal homicide statutes of any other State. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the impact of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization Supreme Court decision on abortion rights and the concept of "fetal personhood," highlighting the risks it poses to pregnant people's autonomy in healthcare decisions. It discusses the need for healthcare workers, including those outside obstetrics and midwifery, to safeguard reproductive autonomy and promote positive arguments defending autonomy and bodily integrity.

This Article argues that intent should govern legal parenthood, regardless of the method of conception, the person's biological or genetic relationship to the resulting embryo/fetus, or the person's gender. This proposition is not new. This Article adds to scholarly discourse by extending the concept: Intent should not just determine parenthood, but also fetal rights. When a pregnant person establishes their procreational intent (or lack thereof) prior to birth, then both the existence (or lack thereof) of legal protections for the embryo/fetus and the gestator's rights and duties (or lack thereof) should flow from this intent. Non-gestating gamete contributors would do the same, to different legal effect. Establishing intent-based parenthood would end automatic legal parenthood. It would also clearly condition most legal rights that a fetus might enjoy on its gestator's intent, and support other rights on the intent of other gamete-contributors. The article proposes a normative framework for the conceptions of legal parenthood and legal fetal personhood under an intentional approach. It further offers some preliminary suggestions regarding how an intentional approach could solve some latent, thorny issues in bioethics, family law, and civil rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the aftermath of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization case, exploring how the concept of fetal personhood affects pregnant individuals' rights to refuse medical treatment. Minkoff, Vullikanti, and Marshall (2024) argue that the visibility of claims regarding fetal personhood could erode the liberty to decline unwanted medical interventions.

The article focuses on Minkoff et al.'s concern that states restricting abortion based on fetal personhood could lead to laws permitting or mandating obstetrical procedures that jeopardize pregnant individuals' health. It mentions while they assert that the Dobbs ruling may endorse fetal personhood, the dissenting opinion emphasizes that the decision doesn't mandate treating embryos or fetuses as legal persons.

The article focuses on highlighting the injustices of reproductive intrusions, particularly coercion during pregnancy and birth, following the Dobbs decision. Minkoff, Vullikanti, and Marshall (2024) underscore how forced interventions, often justified by the perceived benefit to the fetus, compromise pregnant individuals' autonomy and well-being, citing cases like Samantha Burton's coercive bed rest, which lacks evidence-based support and poses significant risks.

The article focuses on the complex interplay between reproductive autonomy, maternal-fetal health considerations, and legal regulations, particularly in light of recent Supreme Court decisions. It discusses the challenges obstetrician-gynecologists face in navigating ethical and legal responsibilities, especially in abortion-restrictive states, and emphasizes the need for stakeholder coalitions to address these complexities collectively rather than burdening individual healthcare providers.

The Abortion Legislation Act 2020 established comprehensive grounds for approving abortions after 20 weeks. These grounds are less restrictive than before law reform. They give qualified health practitioners (QHP) the scope to approve any abortion anyone wants and might reasonably request, if the QHP believes the abortion is clinically justified in the circumstances, having considered all the factors required by law. Because patients hold QHPs accountable under the Health and Disability Commission and legal processes, it is unlikely a QHP will need to justify approving an abortion, although they may well be called upon to justify refusing one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to criticism of the impairment argument for the immorality of abortion, Bruce Blackshaw and Perry Hendricks appeal to Don Marquis's future-like-ours (FLO) account of the wrongness of killing to explain why knowingly causing fetal impairments is wrong. I argue that wedding the success of the impairment argument to FLO undermines all claims that the impairment argument for the immorality of abortion is novel. Moreover, I argue that relying on FLO when there are alternative explanations for the wrongness of causing FAS begs the question. I conclude, therefore, that the impairment argument remains unsuccessful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Planned Parenthood Great Northwest v. State, the Idaho Supreme Court ruled that the Idaho Constitution does not protect a right to abortion. In doing so, the Court proclaimed that its job was not to weigh consequences or rely on out-of-state precedent, but to interpret Idaho's constitution based on the intentions of the constitution's framers. Any other approach, the Court asserted, would replace the constitution's meaning with the personal preferences of the justices. This Article demonstrates the myriad of errors the Idaho Supreme Court made in its analysis. The Court began by misrepresenting the state of Idaho's law of constitutional interpretation. It claimed that Idaho's law requires strict adherence to original intent. But the numerous cases the Court cited in support of this assertion demonstrate an extensive history of numerous interpretive methods, including references to Idaho's and other states' precedents and constitutional provisions, prudential considerations, and textualist principles. Rather than confront or distinguish this contrary precedent, the Court cherry-picked language from the opinions to falsely portray them as demanding a uniform approach to interpretation. The Court compounded its shoddy analysis, ignoring Idaho's law of constitutional interpretation by copying the United States Supreme Court's methodology used in federal due process cases. The Court misapplied this analysis to state constitutional provisions that are entirely distinct from the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause. In doing so, the Court effectively read Idaho's constitutional protections of inalienable rights out of the constitution by equating it with Idaho's constitutional due process clause. The Article concludes by examining several other concerning aspects of the Planned Parenthood opinion, including the Court's refusal to weigh liberty interests, its refusal to grant greater rights protection than the United States Constitution, and its potential recognition of fetal personhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For decades, people in medical distress were able to rely on a federal law, known as EMTALA, which requires medical screenings and stabilizing treatment in hospital emergency rooms regardless of medical or financial circumstances. For some presenting pregnant patients, the standard of care stabilizing medical treatment included abortion care. In June 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, overturning Roe v. Wade, and moving the question of abortion care to the states. In the aftermath of the Dobbs decision, as states pursue individual paths, the interplay between federal law and state law is increasingly becoming the subject of litigation and of scholarship. One of the more notable areas in which state law and federal preemption are clashing is over EMTALA and reproductive health care. Specifically, as to whether patients presenting at EMTALA-covered emergency departments whose medical screening reveals a condition for which abortion is the stabilizing treatment called for are still entitled to that care in states that have severely curtailed or banned abortions. Two states (Idaho and Texas) currently have active lawsuits addressing this question: the correct interplay between EMTALA's requirements and abortion restrictive state laws. As of this writing, the two lawsuits have reached different, if preliminary, conclusions. The Idaho federal district court opinion focused on the rights and medical needs of pregnant people presenting at emergency departments, to reach its conclusion that Idaho emergency departments must continue to follow EMTALA's mandates. The Texas court opinion found that EMTALA protects both pregnant people and unborn children equally and that the state's anti-abortion laws provided a legally defensible solution to this conflict, leading to its holding that Texas emergency rooms can follow that state's anti-abortion laws without running afoul of EMTALA. In this article, I first focus on EMTALA itself, setting out the history of mandated private hospital emergency care, the impetus behind this federal statute, its requirements and penalties, and how it impacts reproductive health care. I then explain the Supreme Court's June 2022 decision in Dobbs and lay out the antiabortion laws in both Idaho and Texas when this decision was issued. After describing the state-level landscape post-Dobbs, I address the federal government's response to the decision in relation to EMTALA. I next explain the origins of the two lawsuits testing the supremacy of EMTALA in Idaho and Texas and the conflicting preliminary injunction holdings on emergency room treatment related to abortion care. This article highlights how these differing decisions turn on an understanding of who the patient in need of emergency medical care actually is, with the Texas court essentially awarding personhood status to the fetus that is equal to that of the pregnant patient, and the Idaho court properly focusing on the health of the pregnant person. After providing a history of the fetal personhood movement in this country, I make the argument that according equal rights to the fetus under EMTALA is both an erroneous reading of that statute and an immoral assault on the bodily autonomy of the pregnant person. I argue that the decision in the Texas EMTALA case is a dangerous harbinger not just to federal supremacy and to abortion care but to a range of additional rights. My argument focuses on the fact that while abortion is an important aspect of health care, it is one moment in time--a legal recognition of fetal personhood would mean that from conception to birth the pregnant person's value as an autonomous human is effectively undermined. The article concludes by providing a window into how this conflict may continue to play out in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across the United States, and especially in communities that are highly policed and in places hostile to abortion, pregnant people are dying, suffering, being separated from their children and families, and going to jail and prison in purported service of the state interest in fetal life recognized in Roe v. Wade and expanded in Planned Parenthood of Pennsylvania v. Casey. This Article focuses on two common practices that cause these harms: criminalizing pregnant people and denying them medical decisionmaking authority. While these practices are not new, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is accelerating them. With abortion returned to the states without a U.S. constitutional floor, the state interest in fetal life can go largely unchecked with respect to all pregnant people, not just those who need abortions. In this Article, we look back at several cases from the 1990s and early 2000s involving denials of medical decision-making authority and criminalization of pregnant people for substance use during pregnancy. We also discuss contemporary instances of these phenomenon, focusing on Alabama’s Child Chemical Endangerment Act and 1997 Wisconsin Act 292, both of which are currently and fervently used to punish pregnant people for actual or suspected substance use and which fail entirely to advance fetal or parental well-being. Based on our survey of these past and present cases, we reflect on several legal arguments and strategies to demand and restore full personhood for pregnant people. We link pregnancy criminalization to legally cognizableanimus, observing that hallmark features of such animus abound when substance use during pregnancy is criminalized. We link environmental injustice to pregnancy criminalization, observing that it is irrational to punish and jail people for “polluting” the mico-environment of the womb in service of an interest in fetal life when all people—particularly the most policed—are perniciously, macro-environmentally exposed to toxins that impact reproduction and pregnancy. We reiterate that informed consent to medical treatment is the bedrock guarantee of healthcare and bodily autonomy—and pregnancy demands rather than diminishes this guarantee—and that drug tests without consent that lead to law enforcement consequences violate both this and the Fourth Amendment. We also very briefly emphasize that mandatory reporting of suspected child abuse or neglect based on a positive drug test fails to protect anyone and that mandatory reporters can challenge this obligation where it frustrates core professional duties. Together, all of these threads intersect to show that criminalizing pregnancy and denying pregnant people medical decision-making authority is about the social control and exclusion that punishment accomplishes. The impulse to control and exclude surely varies intersectionally, corresponding to the expectations and stereotypes about parenting applicable to the punished person or community. But in the end, in every case, no fetal life, no parental life, no family life, and no constitutional right or medical objective is protected or furthered when pregnancy is criminalized and pregnant people are denied medical decision-making authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article argues that protections under the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) must apply to human embryos in all U.S. states that reject pure property regimes for embryo disposition. It explores the status of embryo disposition laws including the Arizona personhood disposition regime and parental rights at the dissolution stage and at embryonic stage. It analyzes the interaction of the ICWA with personhood regime states and examines risks posed by personhood states to Indian tribal families.

Objectives: Ethical dilemmas at both the individual and structural level are part of the daily work of midwives and gender inequality and injustice can affect women's sexual and reproductive health. Mainstream bioethical theory has been criticized for neglecting women's issues. To ensure women's experiences are addressed, a gender lens on ethics is crucial. Aim: This study develops a theory model by exploring ethical dilemmas related to gender in the context of maternity care from the perspective of midwifery science and feminist ethics. Methods: The research strategy followed a coherent stepwise approach: literature search, thematic analysis, elaboration of a gender ethics protocol, and the integration of various components into a preliminary gender ethics model for midwifery. Findings: A literature search was performed using Scopus and Web of Science to identify ethical dilemmas in maternity care linked to gender and power. The search of articles published between 1996 and 2019 returned 61 abstracts. These abstracts were screened and assigned one of the following themes: The Midwifery Profession, The Rights of the Woman, Fetal Rights Dominate, and Medicalization of Pregnancy and Childbirth. A tentative gender ethics frame was developed and tested on two articles on abortion, one from Denmark and one from Japan. The protocol facilitated the gender analysis of ethical dilemmas related to abortion, which were related to the imbalance of power relations in health care. In the final step, we synthesized the dimensions of gender and power in a gender ethics model for midwifery. Discussion: The gender ethics protocol developed revealed gendered dimensions of ethical dilemmas in midwifery. This gender analysis adds to the understanding of the "do no harm" principle by revealing assumptions and stereotypes that promote unequal power relations. The gender ethics model is an innovative approach that envisions and exposes power imbalance at the micro, meso, and macro levels. Conclusions: The protocol could improve gender competence among researchers, midwives/professionals, and midwifery students throughout the world. Plain Language summary: As gender inequity, gender inequality, and oppression infuse dimensions in all human cultures and societies, not the least in midwifery practice where the layers of injustice affect women during pregnancy and birth in high-, middle-, and low-income countries, the time has come to renew the perspectives of normative ethics. In this study, we explore gender ethical dilemmas unique to maternity care from the perspective of midwifery science and feminist ethics. A literature search uncovered ethical dilemmas in midwifery, and four broad themes were identified: Midwifery Profession, Rights of the Woman, Fetal Rights Dominate, and Medicalization of Pregnancy and Childbirth. Next, we developed a gender ethics protocol suitable for providing gender ethical interpretations of results. The protocol was tested and refined using two articles (one from the Denmark and one from Japan) that address ethical dilemmas of abortion care. The pilot analysis indicates that the autonomy of midwives and their scope of practice might be constrained and that the obstetric medicalized/authoritative knowledge still plays a dominate role in maternity practice. Here, we present an elaborate model, gender ethics model for midwifery (GEMM), developed for midwifery science that can be further refined. The model challenges the views of maternity care and contributes to a deeper understanding of how fluid concepts such as gender and power circulate and influence women's and birthing person's sexual and reproductive health. Statement of significance: Problem or issue Layers of injustice affect women during pregnancy and birth in both high-, middle-, and low-income countries. The time has come to renew the perspectives of normative ethics. What is already known? Globally, ethical dilemmas at both the individual and structural levels pervade the daily work of midwives, but ethical research that includes gender theory in midwifery science is limited. What this paper adds Here, we present a gender ethics protocol and develop an innovative gender theory ethics model for midwifery to improve gender competence among researchers, midwives/professionals, and midwifery students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a two-step approach to embryo disputes between heterosexual, divorced couples in the U.S. Topics discussed include the process of in vitro fertilization and associated risks, an analysis of embryo disputes in the context of a property framework wherein the embryos are considered a marital property, and ways for courts to make a fair split in embryo disputes.

Background: The fact that nurses involved in prenatal care have an adequate level of knowledge about these issues will lead to more effective and positive health outcomes in societies where they serve. There is limited research in Turkey on the knowledge levels and attitudes of nurses and student nurses involved in prenatal care. Purpose: This study was conducted to determine the knowledge level of nursing students about prenatal tests and foetal rights. Methods: The sample of this descriptive study consisted of 252 3rd and 4th-grade students studying at a public university. Frequency, arithmetic mean, standard deviation, minimum and maximum values, and Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis tests were employed in the analysis of the data. Results: 47.6% of the students reported that they would reach the delivery decision of a baby with a high risk of an anomaly. A significant difference was found between the test scores of the groups in terms of student gender (p <0.05). The socio-demographic variables of the students were found to not affect their decisions on the delivery of a baby with a high risk of anomalies and their prenatal test knowledge scores (p> 0.05). Conclusions/Implications for Practice: Foetal rights, is recommended to be included in the nursing curriculum to raise the knowledge and awareness levels. Efforts aimed at contributing to facilitative student-patient relationships have a crucial role in shaping students' competency and in promoting high-quality patient care. Thus, in order to improve students' perceptions of prenatal tests and fetal rights, it is thought that students' awareness should be increased on these topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fetal Protection Laws (FPLs) are laws that define and provide punishments for any number of crimes, including homicide, committed "against a fetus."1 Previous literature has suggested that FPLs need to be explicit about who the intended target of this legislation is.2 Specifically, comments concerned about the use of FPLs against pregnant women in relation to their own pregnancies suggested that states include language in their FPLs that make it clear that the law ought not be applied to women for harm to their own fetuses. Indeed, some states like California have taken measures to curtail the application of FPLs to protect women from prosecution for the injury or death of their own fetus.3 However, in recent years, despite these explicit constraints, cases have emerged in California that do just this: prosecute women for harm to their own fetus.4 So why, if states are clearly exempting pregnant women from prosecution for their own injured fetuses, are such prosecutions still being undertaken? This Comment suggests that the problem lies in the fetal personhood theory now underlying these FPLs. FPLs not only provide protective rights to fetuses, but in doing so, define the fetus as a legal person. Under this framework, it becomes impossible not to prosecute the mother for harm because she and the fetus are separate legal persons with separate legal rights and protections. However, there is an alternative. Drawing from feminist care theory and distributive justice, this Comment proposes that rather than consider the fetus and the mother as separate legal entities, the fetus and the mother should be seen as one fetalmaternal entity with rights flowing through the mother. This Comment refers to this theory as the Fetal Maternal Identity Theory (FMIT). Rather than seeing the mother and fetus as independent entities, FMIT correctly recognizes the unique relationality between the fetus and its mother and reconceives of rights as incumbent upon this relationship. Because the fetus is necessarily dependent upon the mother, all of its rights, like its identity and very existence, are afforded to it through and in relation to its mother. This theory solves several problems. First, it helps to define the problem facing states that seek not to prosecute women for harm to their fetuses but find it impossible to do so. Second, it provides the foundation for a new theory of relationality that better appreciates the complex condition of pregnancy and protects women from harm and unjust prosecution. Ultimately, beyond its function, FMIT better apprehends the conditions of pregnancy and provides a well-grounded framework for redistributing responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To analyze intersecting power relations in reproductive and immigration politics, I examine Garza v. Hargan (an appellate case regarding unaccompanied immigrant minors' abortion rights) alongside systemic injustices in immigration detention (e.g., exposure to miscarriage risks, coerced sterilization, shackling). These injustices, I argue, emerge from conflicts and compromises over fetal citizenship within the American radical right. Although pro-life and anti-immigrant discourses assume opposing logics of citizenship, respectively interpreting immigrants' fetuses as "fetal citizens" or "anchor babies," these contradictions are neutralized by two techniques. Debilitation (systematic degradation of a disposable population) enables the appearance of fetal protection to coexist with de facto exposure to death, injury, and risk. Paralegality (quasi-legal policy making by enforcement agents) allows situational shifts in the meaning of fetal citizenship and adjustments to the pro-life/anti-immigrant compromise. Both obscure culpability for reproductive injustice, reinforce interlocking oppressions, and control women's bodies in order to control the body politic's demographic future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the late 20th century, fetal protection policies barred women from hundreds of thousands of industrial jobs on the pretext that if women became pregnant, their fetuses might be harmed by workplace exposure to toxic chemicals. Beginning in the 1970s, these policies set off a decades-long contest between the chemical industry, government agencies, and the judicial system over how to balance the uncertain reproductive health risks against sex discrimination. This article revives the subject of reproductive health and workplace protections through a historical case study of fetal protection policies at Firestone Plastics, a leader in the postwar vinyl chloride industry. I use formerly secret industry documents to argue that Firestone used scientific uncertainty and gender essentialism to skirt new regulatory pressures and minimize corporate liability. Ultimately, fetal protection policies stymied innovative regulatory efforts to protect all workers—not just women—from reproductive hazards in the workplace. (Am J Public Health. 2022;112(2):271–276. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306539) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Access to safe and legal abortion likely will end for half of America by this summer when the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide on Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban, according to reproductive healthcare providers, attorneys, and leaders. Both the Mississippi case and the Texas six-week abortion ban — which the court allowed to continue in December 2021 — will potentially lead to abortion bans in dozens of states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the Supreme Court grounded the right to an abortion in a constitutional right to privacy, legal and societal debate has continued around the status of a fetus in utero, a woman's countervailing claims, and the interests of states and society as a whole. As American courts have faced an issue that intertwines legal, moral, and philosophical questions, so too the halakhic process confronts analogous complexities. The main line of Jewish tradition makes a much-needed contribution to the discussion of abortion. Without sharing the view that the fetus is from conception fully a person, it stops short of a complete dismissal of the value problem in destroying a fetus. However, whatever value attaches to "potential life," the primary concern lies with the woman. She exists. Her voice and her needs must be heard. And her life, (no matter how slim her chances of survival), health, and mental well-being come first. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technology law scholarship has a tendency towards the dramatic. Technology causes disruption. Law must catch-up; it must ensure potential benefits from technology and avoid potential harms. There are even concerns that law, as an organiser of human life, is itself becoming eclipsed by forms of technological management. What is often not focused on is the practical process through which concerns about technology become transmuted into legal forms within specific jurisdictions. This paper examines the 23 years of Australian law concerning embryos and human cloning. Inspired by Carl Schmitt's criticism of modernity's political institutions and the laws they produce, what is identified is a machine that runs itself. It is shown to be a highly automated process whereby technical experts manage competing values. Rather than law regulating technology or technology regulating law; the Australian study suggests that law and its making, is technological. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the negative impact of state fetal endangerment laws on fetal and infant health and the unconstitutionality of such laws in the U.S.

The article presents the discussion on parents accessing information being clinically relevant during pregnancy. Topics include parents prefering to discuss the options with health care professionals rather than employees of commercial companies; and perceiving a conflict between the prospective parents' interests and the interests of the fetus.

In the article, the authors discuss the ethical and legal response to coercive interventions in pregnancy, including forced cesarean sections and penalties for exposing fetuses to risk, in North America. Other topics include the fiduciary duties of medical practitioners, the assignment of personhood to fetuses, and the proposals to bring legal and medical practice in line with ethical obligations.

Abortion is a sensitive and contentious issue with legal and ethical dimensions. It is also a public health concern around the world, raises questions about basic beliefs regarding life and death, the sanctity of life, the beginning of life, and women's rights. Legally, abortion is illegal in some countries such as Jordan, Oman, Qatar, Senegal, and the Philippines, and legal in other countries such as Great Britain, Greece, Poland, Israel, and Turkey. Ethically, opponents considered abortion as equivalent to murder and that such killing of fetuses deprived them of future value, and no matter how much the women may suffer, women can't be allowed to kill their fetuses. Whereas proponents considered abortion as morally justified and that pregnant women have the fundamental right to terminate their pregnancies. The current authors are against abortion to preserve the dignity and respect for the fetus, and that killing or terminating human life is morally wrong. The purpose of this paper was to present arguments on abortion from the legal and ethical views of opponents and proponents. Abortion has been debated for many years, bringing up a lot of controversy and opinions for both with and against its practice. The purpose of this paper was to present arguments of both opponents and proponents about abortion, from both the legal and ethical perspectives. In result, abortion is legal only in special cases such as preserving women's physical and mental health, saving the mother's life, and in cases of rape and incest. "Women have the right to control their bodies" is a popular ethical argument; therefore, they have the right to undergo abortions for any reason they want. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the practical consequences that result from Louisiana's human embryo statutory scheme and the language used to define the legal status of pre-implantation embryos.

While legal scholars and Supreme Court Justices on both sides of the national abortion controversy argue that Roe v. Wade was incorrectly decided, this Article accepts the Court's decision as a provisional holding that was based on the relevant societal, scientific, and legal records available to the Court in 1973. However, the stare decisis analysis outlined by the Court in Planned Parenthood v. Casey dictates that precedent can be overturned when a change in relevant facts robs a ruling of its original justification. If the Court agrees to hear a challenge to Roe, it will likely assess whether the relevant factual records relied upon by the Court in Roe are still responsive to present realities. In 1973, the Court in Roe held that a state's interest in protecting life becomes compelling at fetal viability and fetuses do not have constitutional rights. The Court made these determinations because it could not find a consensus view on when life begins and it found that states were reluctant to recognize fetuses as legal persons outside of the abortion context. Today, the Court can take notice of recent scientific and legal developments: (1) an academic study found a consensus of biologists around the world (96%) agree with the biological fact that a human's life begins at fertilization and (2) there are now eight legal contexts in which fetuses are protected as human persons under the law; today, thirty-eight states have fetal homicide laws that recognize non-abortive killings of fetuses as homicides or murders of human persons. If the Court considers these developments, which establish fetuses as humans in fact and persons under the law, then it would likely hold that Casey's stare decisis standard for reexamining precedent has been satisfied and Roe's viability standard has been robbed of its original justification. Because U.S. senators and Supreme Court Justices have held that all humans are persons within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, these developments could also lead the recognize that all humans have the constitutional right to equal protection under the law throughout their lives, from fertilization until death. Whether the Court overturns Roe and returns the abortion issue to the states, recognizes fetal rights, or uses a new justification to retain or expand abortion rights, this Article argues that the Court cannot allow our Nation to be governed by abortion jurisprudence that rests on outdated and incorrect factual records of the science of fetal development and the legal status of preborn humans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the background on fetal protection laws and the impact they have on the lives of pregnant women. It mentions laws from a criminal law theory perspective and a constitutional perspective and criminalization of pregnant women represent poor public policy, and proposes alternative methods of promoting maternal and fetal health. It also mentions incarceration fails to address underlying conduct, such as drug use.

The 'impairment argument' against abortion developed by Perry Hendricks aims to derive the wrongness of abortion from the wrongness of causing foetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). Hendricks endorses an 'impairment principle', which states that, if it is wrong to inflict an impairment of a certain degree on an organism, then, ceteris paribus, it is also wrong to inflict a more severe impairment on that organism. Causing FAS is wrong in virtue of the impairment it inflicts. But abortion inflicts an even more severe impairment (death), and so, ceteris paribus, is also wrong. Notably, Hendricks thinks that this argument does not require the claim that the foetus is a person. Here, I respond to Hendricks by arguing that the ceteris paribus clause of the impairment principle is not met in ordinary cases of pregnancy. Carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term is much more burdensome than is refraining from excessive drinking for nine months. This provides a pro tanto justification for obtaining an abortion that does not apply to causing FAS. If the foetus is not a person, it seems fairly clear to me that this justification is strong enough to render abortion permissible. Hendricks is therefore incorrect in claiming that the impairment argument can go without claims concerning foetal personhood. If the foetus is a person, then whether burdensomeness justifies abortion depends on certain questions relating to Thomson's famous violinist argument. I will not attempt to answer those. But anyone who is otherwise sympathetic to Thomson's argument should not be moved by the impairment argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent article argued for the immorality of abortion regardless of personhood status by comparing the impairment caused by fetal alcohol syndrome to the impairment caused by abortion. I argue that two of the premises in this argument fail and that, as such, one cannot reasonably attribute moral harms to abortion on the basis of the moral harms caused by fetal alcohol syndrome. The impairment argument relies on an inconsistent instantiation, which undermines the claim that personhood is irrelevant, and it does not fulfill its own ceteris paribus clause, which demands that no additional benefit be gained from abortion that would not be gained from causing fetal alcohol syndrome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eric Vogelstein has defended Don Marquis' 'future‐like‐ours' argument for the immorality of abortion against what is known as the Identity Objection, which contends that for a fetus to have a future like ours, it must be numerically identical to an entity like us that possesses valuable experiences some time in the future. On psychological accounts of personal identity, there is no identity relationship between the fetus and the entity with valuable experiences that it will become. Vogelstein maintains that a non‐sentient fetus nonetheless has a future like ours because it is numerically identical with a future organism that has a mind that bears valuable experiences. Skott Brill, drawing on Jeff McMahan's embodied mind account, denies that human organisms directly have experiences, claiming that they only have experiences derivatively by virtue of their thinking part, and the loss of a future like ours is not transferred to the organism. I show that on McMahan's account, a strong case can be made for the organism having experiences directly, and the subject having these experiences derivatively. This negates Brill's reasoning, although it does imply that non‐sentient fetuses do not have a future like ours in quite the same way as we do. I conclude that this is not problematic for Marquis' argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Every legal system in the world guarantees right to life. But the right to life of an unborn child is somewhat differently treated as in some respects it is an independent human being whereas in other respects it is still a part of the mother. Termination of pregnancy has always been a controversial issue in societies as well as legal systems. If we look at Islamic law an unborn child‟s right to life is divine and cannot be taken away by the mother or the state. Islamic law considers a fetus a separate life and allows abortion only in exceptional circumstances. In Pakistan abortion is an offence and is being dealt with in the Pakistan Penal Code 1860. This article will discuss an unborn child‟s right to life and the law related to abortion in Pakistan. The law of abortion in Pakistan is based on Islamic law especially the Hanafī school, so relevant issues will be discussed in Islamic law as well. The methodology used is analytical and comparative. The basic aim of the study is to suggest reforms in law of abortion in Pakistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fetal "heartbeat" bills have become the anti-abortion legislative measure of choice in the US war on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). In 2019, Georgia House Bill 481 (HB 481) passed by a narrow margin banning abortions upon detection of embryonic cardiac activity, as early as six weeks gestation. The purpose of this study was to distinguish and characterise the arguments and tactics used by legislators and community members in support of Georgia's early abortion ban. Our data included testimony and debate from House Health and Human Services and the Senate Science and Technology Committees; data were transcribed verbatim and coded in MAXQDA 18 using a constant comparison method. Major themes included: the use of the "heartbeat" as an indicator of life and therefore personhood; an attempt to create a new class of persons – fetuses in utero – entitled to legal protection; and arguments to expand state protections for fetuses as a matter of state sovereignty and rights. Arguments were furthered through appropriation by misrepresenting medical science and co-opting the legal successes of progressive movements. Our analysis provides an initial understanding of evolving early abortion ban strategy and its tactics for challenging established legal standards and precedent. As the battle over SRHR wages on, opponents of abortion bans should attempt to understand, deconstruct, and analyse anti-abortion messaging to effectively combat it. These data may inform their tactical strategies to advance sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice both in the US context and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fetus-first mentality advocates that pregnant women and women who could become pregnant should put the needs and well-being of their fe tuses before their own. As this Article will illustrate, this popular public perception has pervaded criminal law, impacting responses to women deemed to be the "irresponsible" pregnant woman and so the "bad" mother. The Article considers cases from Alabama and Indiana in the United States and from England in the United Kingdom, providing clear evidence that concerns about the behavior of pregnant women now hang heavily over criminal justice responses to women who experience a negative pregnancy outcome or who are perceived to have behaved in a way that could result in a negative outcome. This Article provides a new approach by bringing together a critical assessment of fetal protection laws with theories of motherhood ideologies and analyzing how such ideologies have resulted in legal developments not only in the US, where the fetus has been granted legal recognition in most states, but also in England and Wales, where the fetus continues to have no legal personality. The Article will conclude that the application of the fetusfirst mentality within criminal law has resulted in dangerous legal developments that challenge women's rights, while doing little to protect fetuses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contrast to embryo donation, the permissibility of 2PN cell donation is highly controversial in Germany. This article is based on there being a legal loophole with respect to 2PN cell donation, which results from an inconsistency within the Embryo Protection Act on the normative status of 2PN cells. Following that thesis, the article argues that, on the basis of the normative criterion totipotency (i.e. the capacity to develop into a born human being), 2PN cells should also be considered human embryos within the meaning of the Act and thereby be protected by that Act in the same way as embryos. However, the normative assumption that 2PN cells should already be endowed with human dignity and the right to life has absurd consequences. Moreover, the consistent continuation of the Embryo Protection Act, as well as of the underlying ethical position or argumentation (i.e. the potentiality argument), leads to the even more absurd consequence of having to place every human somatic cell under the protection of human dignity and the right to life. As totipotency or the developmental potential therefore cannot delimit entities considered worthy of protection (i.e. human embryos) from entities considered not worthy of protection (i.e. 2PN cells, gametes, hESC, hiPSC and human somatic cells), it is not a suitable normative criterion. As a paradigmatic case, 2PN cell donation demonstrates that by retaining this normative criterion the now obsolete German Embryo Protection (Act) ultimately undermines itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The embryo rescue case (ERC) is a thought experiment that is used to argue against the view that embryos have a right to life (i.e., are persons). I will argue that cognitive science undermines the intuition elicited by the ERC. I will show that whether or not embryos have a right to life, our mental tools will make it very difficult to believe that they do have the said right. This suggests that the intuition elicited by the ERC is not truth‐indicative. The upshot of this is that we have an undercutting defeater for our intuition that embryos do not have a right to life. Thus, the ERC is a bad argument against embryonic personhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To investigate right aortic arches (RAA) quantitatively and risk-stratify fetuses with RAA prenatally. Method: A total of 143 singleton fetuses were enrolled. Four measurements were studied, including the angle and distance between the aortic arch (AO) and ductal arch (DA), the diameters of the AO and DA, and the distance growth rate (DGR). Result: A significant increase in mean distance was observed in the study group (4.89 ± 1.07 mm) compared to the control group (1.62 ± 0.33 mm, p<.01). The distance increased from the second (1.52 ± 0.35 mm, p<.01, 4.06 ± 0.78 mm, p<.01) to third trimester (1.71 ± 0.29 mm, p<.01, 5.13 ± 1.10 mm, p<.01) in the normal and study groups. Fetuses with abnormalities in addition to RAAs had significantly lower growth rates (12.4 ± 5.2%) than those with an isolated RAA (33.7 ± 12.0%). Conclusion: Parameters, especially DGR, may be clinically significant. DGR may be restricted when an RAA exists with other malformations. Decreasing DGR in fetuses with RAAs suggests the presence of other malformations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fetal myocardium is known to be sensitive to hemodynamic load, responding to systolic overload with cellular hypertrophy, proliferation, and accelerated maturation. However, the fetal cardiac growth response to primary volume overload is unknown. We hypothesized that increased venous return would stimulate fetal cardiomyocyte proliferation and terminal differentiation, particularly in the right ventricle (RV). Vascular catheters and pulmonary artery flow probes were implanted in 16 late-gestation fetal sheep: a right carotid artery-jugular vein (AV) fistula was surgically created in nine fetuses, and sham operations were performed on seven fetuses. Instrumented fetuses were studied for 1 wk before hearts were dissected for component analysis or cardiomyocyte dispersion for cellular measurements. Within 1 day of AV fistula creation, RV output was 20% higher in experimental than sham fetuses (P < 0.0001). Circulating atrial natriuretic peptide levels were elevated fivefold in fetuses with an AV fistula (P < 0.002). On the terminal day, RV-to-body weight ratios were 35% higher in the AV fistula group (P < 0.05). Both left ventricular and RV cardiomyocytes grew longer in fetuses with an AV fistula (P < 0.02). Cell cycle activity was depressed by >50% [significant in left ventricle (P < 0.02), but not RV (P < 0.054)]. Rates of terminal differentiation were unchanged. Based on these studies, we speculate that atrial natriuretic peptide suppressed fetal cardiomyocyte cell cycle activity. Unlike systolic overload, fetal diastolic load appears to drive myocyte enlargement, but not cardiomyocyte proliferation or maturation. These changes could predispose to RV dysfunction later in life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following is an excerpt from Linda Schlossberg's dystopic novel The Incubator. It is introduced by an essay contextualizing the novel in relation to contemporary discourses and anxieties about fetal rights, women's rights, citizenship, and the body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There are no universally agreed rules of healthcare ethics. Ethical decisions and standards tend to be linked to professional codes of practice when dealing with complex issues. Objectives: This paper aims to explore the ethical complexities on who should decide to give infants born on the borderline of viability lifesaving treatment, parents or the healthcare professionals. Method: The paper is a discussion using the principles of ethics, professional codes of practice from the UK, Nursing Midwifery Council and UK legal case law and statute. Healthcare professionals' experiences that influence parental decision are also considered. Findings & Discussion: There are considerable barriers to an effective discussion taking place in an environment where clinical decisions have to be made quickly once the baby is born. This is compounded by the need and respect for parental autonomy and the difficulties they face when making a best interest's decision knowing that this could cause more harm than good for their infant child and balancing any decision they make with quality of life. Conclusion: On deciding whether to give lifesaving treatment born at the borderline of viability, it should be a joint decision between the parents and the neonatal team. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an article of this journal, Perry Hendricks makes a novel argument for the immorality of abortion. According to his impairment argument, abortion is immoral because: (a) it is wrong to impair a fetus to the nth degree, such as causing the fetus to have fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS); (b) it is wrong to impair a fetus to the n+1 degree (to cause the fetus to be more impaired than to have FAS); (c) killing the fetus impairs the fetus to the n+1 degree (causes it to be more impaired than to have FAS); (d) abortion kills the fetus; (e) therefore, abortion is immoral. The impairment argument is a promising account for the wrongness of abortion because it does not rely on the controversial metaphysical premise that a fetus is a person. This article aims to show, that despite some immediate advantages over the rival theories of the immorality of abortion there is a reason to believe that the impairment argument is untenable. That is because there are goods that can be achieved by abortion but that cannot be achieved by impairing the fetus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States Supreme Court dealt a significant blow to abortion opponents in Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, but the 2016 ruling did not dampen their resolve. Just days after Texas lost the Hellerstedt battle, the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) returned to the fight and proposed regulations requiring health care facilities to inter or cremate the remains of aborted and miscarried fetuses. Undeterred by a preliminary injunction entered against those regulations once they became final, the Texas legislature enacted a law with similar effect in June 2017. The Texas law, however, proved to be good ground for yet another victory for those who advocate choice. Having already found the DSHS regulations wanting, the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas enjoined the new statute, concluding that it was unlikely to survive the undue burden test that the Supreme Court set out in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey. The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has now followed suit with respect to an Indiana law regulating the disposition of fetal remains. But rather than applying Casey's undue burden test, the appeals court determined that the Indiana statute could not survive even the very deferential rational basis standard of review. Importantly, the decisions of both the Texas district court and the Seventh Circuit conflict with a 1990 decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit to uphold a Minnesota fetal remains disposition law--in a case tried before Roe v. Wade's demanding trimester framework gave way to Casey's more lenient undue burden standard. Thus, three federal courts are now in conflict, and the Supreme Court may need to step in yet again to decide who is right. Unfortunately, Hellerstedt provides no easy answer to the question of whether fetal remains disposition requirements like those enacted in Texas and Indiana can survive constitutional challenge. The Texas legislation at issue in Hellerstedt purportedly advanced the state's interest in safeguarding maternal health, and thus one questions how the Hellerstedt Court's interpretation of Casey's undue burden standard will apply to abortion regulations that are founded on the state's interest in protecting potential life. What is certain, though, is that the Hellerstedt Court did not overrule its decision either in Casey or in Gonzales v. Carhart, both of which upheld measures aimed at encouraging a woman to choose childbirth over abortion. This Article thus contends that, when viewed in light of Casey and Gonzales, Hellerstedf s interpretation of the undue burden test leaves states with a great deal of latitude to regulate abortion in a manner aimed at protecting potential life. As a result, efforts to regulate the method of disposing of fetal remains should pass constitutional muster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]