title: Self-ownership, abortion and infanticide.
abstract: Doctors have been placed in an anomalous position by abortion laws which sanction the termination of a fetus while in a woman's womb, yet call it murder when a physician attempts to end the life of a fetus which has somehow survived such a procedure. This predicament, the doctors' dilemma, can be resolved by adopting a strategy which posits the right to ownership of one's own body for human beings. Such an approach will generate a consistent policy prescription, one that sanctions the right of all pregnant women to abortions, yet grants the fetus, after it becomes viable as a potentially independent person, a right to its own body. The doctors' dilemma is surmounted, then, by requiring that abortions of viable fetuses be performed in a manner that will produce a live delivery. Hence, infanticide and termination of viable fetuses are proscribed.
mesh_terms: D037881:Aborted Fetus; D000029:Abortion, Legal; D033421:Beginning of Human Life; D004992:Ethics, Medical; D005260:Female; D006806:Human Rights; D006801:Humans; D007237:Infanticide; D019369:Life; D028681:Moral Obligations; D026684:Personal Autonomy; D028723:Personhood; D010686:Philosophy, Medical; D011247:Pregnancy; D037841:Pregnant People; D026712:Value of Life