[1] Mary Doe is a human embryo preserved in liquid nitrogen, in an unnamed in vitro fertilization clinic. Mary Doe’s name was given by an organization dedicated to advocating for equal humanity and personhood of pre-born children, including “children in vitro.” In response to President Clinton’s policy favoring embryonic stem cell [hereinafter EScell] research, the organization filed suit on be...

This influential opinion by famed jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes [5], Jr. was copied by courts throughout the United States. For over sixty years, courts refused to recognize a cause of action on behalf of a child who died before or after birth as a result of injuries suffered in the womb [6] because the fetus [7] was considered legally a part of its mother and thus did not possess personhood [8]...

The relationship between society, medicine, and the law is multi-faceted and complex. This Article examines the process of, and the influences on, the construction of fetal personhood in the legal discourses in American and Commonwealth case law and statutes. It demonstrates how the physical and visual separation of the fetus, as made possible by medical advances, has influenced the development...

We investigate the features people use in making inferences about continuity of individual persons. Using a transformation paradigm, we show that people weigh both continuity of the brain and continuity of mental content. Across experiments, we document instances in which participants are more likely to assert individual continuity than continuity of personhood. We discuss these results in term...

Hope in the context of individuals with dementia and their carers is defined in this paper in terms of an openness to surprises with regard to indicators of continuing self-identity in the individual with dementia, active agency with regard to carers and affected individuals to the extent possible, and the affirmation of a theory of personhood and related moral status that breaks through the li...

Objective One of the most controversial issues related to human embryo is to determine the moment when the embryo is considered as a human being and acquires a moral status. Although personhood and moral status are frequently touched upon in medical ethics, they are considered interdisciplinary as concepts shaping the debate in Medical Law (Fiqh) since their consequences are influential in the ...

The Embryo Rescue Case asks us to consider whether we should save a fully-developed child or tray full of many embryos from fire. Most people pick the child. This allegedly provides evidence against view that have same moral status as developed humans. Pro-life philosophers usually grant you child, but say this doesn’t undermine claim possess status. There may be reasons besides differing Meanw...

There is no issue more central to the abortion debate than the controversial issue of whether the fetus is a moral person. Abortion-rights opponents almost universally claim that abortion is murder and should be legally prohibited because the fetus is a moral person at the moment of conception. Abortion-rights proponents almost universally deny the crucial assumption that the fetus is a person;...