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Perhaps rights are not an all-or-nothing issue. Norman Gillespie has suggested that the strength of a fetus' rights increases gradually as it develops in the womb. Thus a zygote would have a minimal right to life, a late term fetus one that is much stronger, but still not as strong as that of its mother. Similarly, someone might claim that the embryo/fetus acquires new and different rights as it develops.

This view fits with some common intuitions about abortion, but it requires more argument. For one thing, it requires identifying what it is about the developing child that provides the basis and rationale for increasingly strong rights (or for additional rights). It is not, for example, the growing weight of the child. But what is it? Why should we associate stronger rights with that property? And what does it mean to say that rights get "stronger"? (One answer is that it takes weightier reasons to override or breach a stronger right.)

Many proposed criteria for having rights refer to the properties of a being as it exists at a specific time. In the case of rocks, for example, this seems to make sense, partly because rocks don't change in relevant ways. But what about a being that does change in relevant ways?

What if a being has no consciousness at one time but becomes conscious later? Should we consider only its properties in the present or should we also look at its properties in the past and its likely properties in the future? Perhaps we should decide on the basis of the high point of its career? (If an adult is in a coma we do not say that he or she has no rights because we know what he or she was and what he or she may be again.) How should we decide the case of the embryo or fetus?

Do we normally ascribe rights on the basis of present properties or future properties for which the potential exists at present? In the case of legal rights the answer is generally "no." (A ten year old potential voter does not have the right to vote.) Should a potential person have the same moral rights as an actual person? Consider the case of Michael Tooley's amazing cat: Assume that we have injected a cat with a drug that will interact with the cat's genes in such a way that it will gradually change into a person. It will reason, make decisions, plan for its future, learn to speak, have memories, and so forth. In short, after the injection the cat is a potential person. What are its rights? Is it permissible to kill the cat?

Suppose we could clone any human cell into an adult person. Each cell is now a potential person. Does every human cell therefore acquire the rights of a person?

There are also problems concerning sperm cells and ova. If beings with the potential to have the set of properties X are considered to be the kinds of beings that can have rights, then what are we to say about these cells? A sperm cell or an ovum by itself will not develop into anything, but its potential is unique and quite impressive. Given the right circumstances it will develop into a full human being.

And remember, a fertilized ovum requires the right circumstances too, and rather special ones at that.

Of course everyone agrees that the fertilized cell is physically more complete (if we judge by what it takes to become a fetus or a child). But we need a moral principle to which this greater completeness is relevant. What is that principle?

It might be objected that cases like these are imaginary or unlikely to occur. Someone might take this position: Beings can have rights if they have a set of properties X in the present or if they will normally develop into beings that have those properties. This would exclude cats and finger cells that can only become people in imaginary situations.

A lot depends on the term `normally' here. Does it mean 'usually'? If so, what would happen if it turned out that 51% of all embryos were spontaneously aborted? We could no longer say that acquiring the properties in set X was the usual outcome of fertilization. On the other hand, you might define 'normal' in some other way. What definition could you use?

Reference: See Gillespie, "Abortion and Human Rights," in the Feinberg anthology.