Psy 357: Rights of a Fetus

Rights of a Fetus

 Sarah Wiggins

Grand Canyon University: PSY 357

September 28th, 2014

The rights of a fetus have and will always continue to be an ongoing discussion.  Roe v. Wade’s granting protection for the right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy was, as some would say the start of the abortion debate; the court has since declined to address the issue, but there are still growing recognition of the unborn child from both a medical and social stand point.    Fetal rights are used as a standpoint for those who support pro-life; people who are pro-life are people who believe that a fetus is a person, which believes that a fetus has a right to life.  Pro-life people will argue that the value of a human life should be valued from fertilization until natural death.  

According to our textbook Life-Span Development by John Santrock, Prenatal development is about 266 days; fertilization, to birth.  Development is broken up into three stages: Germinal, Embryonic and Fetal. The Germinal period starts two weeks after conception, when the egg and the sperm unite and become fertilized, called a zygote.  Cells then begin to divide and differentiate taking on different task that will determine what type of cells they will eventually become(2010).  Within these two weeks and even longer than that , a women does not even know she pregnant, nothing changes within the body, this is just the set up for everything that is about to happen.  In the article “Considerations Regarding the Legal Status of Embryo and Fetus From the Perspective of the Right to Life” Patrick Lazar said, that most people believe that the line to not have an abortion is right after 14days, so from conception all the way until 14days you have a window to where you can abort, but during this time, people still believe that regards to the state the baby is in, there is no difference in an embryo to a living person.  They just consider it an ongoing growth progress.  He explained that you wouldn’t kill a young child just because they are not done developing, so why would you kill something that will eventually start growing in your body (2012).

The second stage of pregnancy is the embryonic stage, which occurs from 2 to 8 weeks after conception.  In this stage, all of the major organs are beginning to form i.e. digestive system, respiratory system, and the nervous system.  This part of the pregnancy is the most fragile for the embryo, since everything is starting to form and come together. In the article “The Effects of Maternal Nutrition on Fetal Psychological Development”, Michelle Recame talks about how the biggest thing you want to during this time is stay away from teratogens, teratogens would be things such as malnutrition, drugs, alcohol, virusеs, and radiation that that can cause dеformities to the fetus (2013). According the textbook, Science has proved that, the heart of a fetus will start beating anywhere from 18-25 days, the eyes begin to appear around the 21st day, and around the 24th day you start to see the cells of the heart begin to differentiate.  During the fourth week, arms and leg buds begin to emerge.  From the 5th-8th week you start to see the face form, although it might not be too recognizable. Then by the 43rd day electrical brainwaves will start working (Santrock, 2010).  Since all of these things are going on, the rights of keeping a baby would be more serious.  The baby is obviously forming, its heart is beating, it has a face, and little buds of the limbs have appeared, so at this point regardless of what you may believe and what this baby might even look like, it is still developing. Also, knowing that you have this little bean inside of you, which is developing these senses, and is becoming aware of their surroundings, should give you more of motive to keep them.  They are starting to develop everything we as people have.