PHL283H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Abortion Debate, Embryonic Stem Cell, Louise Brown
Document Summary
Until 1967 abortion was illegal in almost all the western democracies except sweden and denmark. Those opposed to the legal and social trend did not give up. Presidents have tried to tip the balance in the supreme court to try and overturn the law, or at least allowing states to restrict, in various ways, access to abortion. The birth of louise brown in 1978 changed the nature of the abortion debate entirely. She was the first human to have been born from embryo that had been fertilised outside of the human body. Embryos can be screened for genetic abnormalities, and then discarded if such abnormalities are found. Abortion and destructive embryo experimentation pose difficult ethical issues because the development of the human being is a gradual process. If we take the fertilised egg immediately after conception, it is hard to get upset about its death.
