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L. W. Sumner has argued that "sentience" (i.e., a complex of traits involving at least the ability to feel pleasure and pain) is crucial in determining moral status. Once a being acquires sentience, it has a good that can be lost. It is for the protection of such beings that we use the moral device of rights. At some stage of pregnancy sentience develops and after that stage the fetus acquires a moral status that demands our consideration.

Reference: See Sumner, Abortion and Moral Theory, especially chapter four.