"what duty of care does a parent owe a child and when does this start?"
Aristotle also saw that question as needed in determining when protected life begins. He saw a sliding scale of guilt for those who abort: forgivable if early, guilty if late.
Our embryology education greatly exceeds that of his time, and we are aware of daily, if not more frequent, developments in a human embryo and then fetus.
At what point in that development does that embryo/fetus/child's right to continued and future life pre-empt - if only temporarily - bodily autonomy of the mother?
Here are prior US court rulings on bodily autonomy, possibly of limited relevance here:
the other wrinkle here is the increasing viability of younger and younger unborn babies due to improvements in neonatal technology. if we get to the point where the unborn could be gestated outside of an unwilling mother's body, then what? she still gets to kill it? I have a strong feeling that in fifty years or less we will look back on this era like we currently look at early humans leaving babies outside to die.
"what duty of care does a parent owe a child and when does this start?"
Aristotle also saw that question as needed in determining when protected life begins. He saw a sliding scale of guilt for those who abort: forgivable if early, guilty if late.
Our embryology education greatly exceeds that of his time, and we are aware of daily, if not more frequent, developments in a human embryo and then fetus.
At what point in that development does that embryo/fetus/child's right to continued and future life pre-empt - if only temporarily - bodily autonomy of the mother?
Here are prior US court rulings on bodily autonomy, possibly of limited relevance here:
https://colleenhuber.substack.com/p/bodily-autonomy-judicial-precedent
the other wrinkle here is the increasing viability of younger and younger unborn babies due to improvements in neonatal technology. if we get to the point where the unborn could be gestated outside of an unwilling mother's body, then what? she still gets to kill it? I have a strong feeling that in fifty years or less we will look back on this era like we currently look at early humans leaving babies outside to die.
We can only hope