The Right to Life
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If you claim that an embryo or a fetus has an important right to life, you must indicate what this right involves. For example, it has been suggested that a right to life might include one or more of the following. How would you define a "right to life"?

A right to any and all help necessary to sustain life A right to actions or services promised by others. (Has anyone explicitly promised the fetus anything? Can a promise be implicit?) A right not to be deprived of life by other people A right not to be unjustly deprived of life by other people

If you believe that the fetus' right to life includes the right to the support of its mother's body, you must decide why this is true. Since the rest of us have no such right, how did the fetus acquire it? What if the mother never intended to confer such a right on her child? (What if she did but she has changed her mind?) In the absence of a contract, how does one acquire obligations to others, including a fetus?

Reference: Judith Thomson's article "A Defense of Abortion" contains a discussion of what a right to life might include. Some of the points here are taken from her discussion.

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