Ethicists: No human rights for fetuses

While the unborn child could be considered a "patient," such a status should not be confused with having human rights - something the child would only gain later thanks to a more developed nervous system, insist the authors of a new report justifying the ethics of abortion. The article, entitled "An ethically justified practical approach to offering, recommending, performing, and referring for induced abortion and feticide," was published in the online American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology in September 2009. Its goal is to craft an ethical framework that allows for the killing of unborn children - and requires doctors to refer for the procedure - by making distinctions between "autonomy-based and beneficence-based obligations" and "professional conscience from individual conscience." "Because of the immaturity of the fetal central nervous system," the authors write, "the fetus lacks the capacity to generate a perspective on its interests." LifeSiteNews