Ethics in Healthcare: Moral Status and Fetus and Biomedical Research with Fetuses (Coursework Sample)

Direct Questions on Ethics in Healthcare
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Direct Questions on Ethics in Healthcare
Question 1: Moral Status and Fetus
The two moral theories that an analyst can utilize in categorizing the moral status of a fetus as either having full moral status, appreciable but having no full moral status, or a mere tissue include utilitarianism and Kantianism. For example, Kantianism embraces sophisticated cognitive capacities to classify such a scenario based on moral status. In this case, the capacities can take the form of emotional or intellectual abilities. Kant argued that one should consider beings without autonomy not qualified for full moral status (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2021). Therefore, Kant would classify a fetus as a mere tissue because it cannot apply objective morality.
Viewing the fetus in the light of a potential to establish cognitive capacities is another approach to determining whether a fetus has moral status. The fetus would then be appreciated as having the potential to gain moral status but lacking such quality at the time. Although no existing moral theories support this idea, past writers have suggested it because it would be wrong to treat a fetus that will only take a few years to develop cognition as a mere means following Kant’s stand (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2021). Toddlers