[gridlock]

I tend to view uterine implantation as the demarcation point. Of course, post-implantation there remain a large number of natural fetal development failures, but it seems to me that post-implantation there should be no artificial inducements of failure. In short, I think the very definition of the term abortion is artificial termination post-implantation.

What is your opinion of medical experimentation that artificially sustains and grows the blastocyst and induces later stages of development that normally occur after implantation without implantation? It is a fairly straightforward problem to keep the blastocyst developing in a laboratory setting, getting differentiation and such, without the tissue every being implanted in a womb.

Certainly it is reasonable to assume that before too many years pass, medical science will permit us to grow fetuses all the way to the point of birth, or decanting, as Aldous Huxley called it. Should such a child have rights as an individual, even though it was never implanted?

[atlaw]

I tend to view the procedures that entail artificial fetal development as you describe as subject to the same restrictions and prohibitions as human cloning. Indeed, I have considerable trouble distinguishing between the two philosophically.