Abortion and Infanticide Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Abortion and Infanticide - Essay Example Potentiality principle described by the writer explains about the importance of possession of some property which makes some one eligible to have a serious right to life. For any organism to have this right the property should be there on continuous basis instead of that property is gained during the course of life. The author explains this issue of possession of some property to a further step by discussing the continuous ability of an organism having that property. He takes adult human as a model who has got that property but the human fetus still has not attained that level to be provided with that property so the fetus does not have the right to life based on the potentiality principle. This differentiation he makes by dividing the ability at two levels: physiological and psychological. He states that the physiological properties are same at the fetal level if compared across the species but this property based on physiological characteristics does not allow some organism to enjo y the right life. Once some one reaches a level to attain the psychological characteristics sufficient enough to be recognized as possessing that property with serious right to life. In fact, he tries to defend the idea that the serious right to life is not granted right at the beginning of some organism’s life at the zygote level, for example, in humans but there is some cut off point after which an organism belonging to some species may become eligible to serious right to life.