PubMed Health⌕ Search

SEARCH · PubMed Health

Results for “Declaration on Procured Abortion”

Explore indexed PubMed citations for clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health research. Read source abstracts and follow each citation to its original PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

10 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1997

Persons, practices, and the conception argument.

The argument that human life should be fully protected once conception is complete has been challenged by the claim that at that time such life is not genuinely individuated in the morally required sense. This essay analyzes the "conception versus individuation" exchange and directs attention to the communal contexts within which the relevant arguments and counter-arguments arise.

Beginning of Human Life↗
PubMed1989

The use of fetal and anencephalic tissue for transplantation.

Advances in transplantation have extended the life and relieved the suffering of thousands of individuals. The prospect of being able to use tissues from embryos, as well as from anencephalic newborns, offers the promise of further relief of suffering. However, these possibilities raise significant moral and public policy issues. The question arises of the extent to which those who disapprove of abortion may make use of tissues derived from abortion in order to treat serious diseases. This essay argues that, with proper safeguards, such tissue can be used without cooperating in abortion. That is, even those who oppose abortion can benefit from the use of tissue procured during abortion. Questions also arise regarding the probity of maintaining a pregnancy in order to produce an anencephalic newborn whose biological existence will be maintained so as better to secure organs once death is declared. It is argued that, since no harm can be done to a being that has neither a sense of self or the capacity to feel pain, and since women have a right to forego abortions, there is no legitimate ground for opposing women's seeking meaning in their pregnancy through maximizing the opportunity of others to use the organs of their anencephalic newborn once death has been declared. Finally, it is argued that, since the capacities for sentience, a minimal condition for personhood, are never realized by an anencephalic, the entity has never been alive as a person. Therefore, there should be no opposition in principle to aborting anencephalics nor, after proper declaration, to making their organs available as one would after whole-brain death, despite the continued functioning of the brain stem.

Aborted Fetus↗
PubMed1993

Scientific and ethical concerns in neural fetal tissue transplantation.

This report presents a brief overview of the medical and ethical issues involved with the procurement, preparation, safety, efficacy, and subject protection of human fetal central nervous system tissue in the context of neural transplantation. The ethical perspectives from which to view the clinical use of fetal tissue include the following: 1) that fetal tissue from elective abortions is a surgical specimen; 2) that the use of such tissue involves fetal experimentation in which the fetus is a subject; and 3) that fetal tissue is considered as a cadaveric organ specimen, similar to other organs, but with special considerations compared with adult cadaveric tissue. The latter approach appears to be the most applicable and is parallel to the use of cadaveric organs and tissues after a declaration of brain death. Additional issues include the following: 1) the safety and quality of fetal tissue for implantation; 2) the hypothesis that "legitimization" and "redemption" (potentially positive effects of tissue donation in general) may lead to an increase in elective abortion rates; 3) the ethical issues of the validity and value of human experimentation involving neural grafting; and 4) the type of consent to be obtained and the appropriate timing. Elective abortions, however, probably will continue to be the primary source of fetal tissue for grafting for some time, until other tissue sources become available.

Aborted Fetus↗
PubMed1988

Act of 20 June 1988.

This Missouri Act contains the following provisions with respect to abortions performed with the intent to use fetal organs or tissue for transplantation and experiments: "188.036. 1) No physician shall perform an abortion on a woman if the physician knows that the woman conceived the unborn child for the purpose of providing fetal organs or tissue for medical transplantation to herself or another, and the physician knows that the woman intends to procure that abortion to utilize those organs or tissue for such use for herself or another. 2) No person shall utilize the fetal organs or tissue resulting from an abortion for medical transplantation, if the person knows that the abortion was procured for the purpose of utilizing those organs or tissue for such use. 3) No person shall offer any inducement, monetary or otherwise, to a woman or a prospective father of an unborn child for the purpose of conceiving an unborn child for the medical, scientific, experimental, or therapeutic use of the fetal organs or tissue. 4) No person shall offer any inducement, monetary or otherwise, to the mother or father of an unborn child for the purpose of procuring an abortion for the medical, scientific, experimental, or therapeutic use of the fetal organs or tissue. 5) No person shall knowingly offer or receive any valuable consideration for the fetal organs or tissue resulting form an abortion, provided that nothing in this subsection shall prohibit payment for burial or other final disposition of the fetal remains, or payment for a pathological examination, autopsy or postmortem examination of the fetal remains. 6) If any provision in this section or the application thereof to any person, circumstance, or period of gestation is held invalid, such invalidity shall not affect the provisions or applications which can be given effect without the invalid provision or application, and to this end the provisions of this section are declared severable."

Abortion, Induced↗
PubMed1989

Brain life and brain death--the anencephalic as an explanatory example. A contribution to transplantation.

The current debate regarding the suitability of anencephalics as organ donors is due primarily to misunderstandings. The anatomical and neurophysiological literature shows that the anencephalic lacks a cerebrum because of the failure of neuralplate fusion. However, even the incomplete function of an atrophic brain stem is currently accepted at law in most if not all countries as sufficient for brain life: which is to say, cessation of breathing is currently required in order to make the diagnosis of brain death. Because of the extensive incompleteness of the anencephalic's brain, it is not possible to postpone death significantly by mechanical ventilation and intravenous feeding. It is acceptable to maintain life for a short period of time in order to allow organ transplantation subsequent to the declaration of death at the point of cessation of the capacity for spontaneous respiration. The most important issue is not transplantation, but the issue of brain life raised by the case of anencephalics. Since brain life in any significant sense begins only after the closure of the neural tube on the 30th day after conception, it is reasonable to take this as the point at which brain life begins. Laws should be amended in all countries to allow the abortion of anencephalics at any time, in that they do not at any time possess brain life.

Aborted Fetus↗