Related Ideas

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Here are some other cases to think about:

For the sake of science, a mother takes a drug that causes the embryo to develop in such a way that her child is moderately retarded. Assume the child meets the requirements of having the same rights as normal people. Is this permissible? Here we have a person who is harmed by what was done earier to an embryo. A crazy man has a radiation gun that will kill embryos but doesn't physically harm the mother. If embryos are not people, we can't say that he commits murder. If they have no rights, we can't argue that he violates them. What is wrong with what he does? Is it only that he deprives the mother of something she values?

Even if neither the embryo nor the fetus is the kind of being that can have rights (perhaps because it is not conscious), does it follow that it cannot have value? Does it matter?

One might argue, for example, that if people are extremely valuable, then potential people (with or without rights) are also extremely valuable (although perhaps somewhat less so than developed people). After all, without embryos there won't be any more people.

Might it be wrong to injure an embryo or fetus because of its great value even if it does not have rights? How might the value of an embryo or fetus enter the argument? Could it be used to require serious reasons for abortion?