[jinx]

Originally posted by Slartibartfast



What I am getting at is that legally, you can define anything not yet out of the womb as not possesing rights. But biologically, one is just as fully human as the other.

Yes, I agree. One is a human fetus and the other is a human infant.

To make up a contrived situation that may or may not be parallel to this mess . A baby swollows a special key that would unlock a vault in which a man is trapped. The man will die by suffocation if the key in not retrieved quickly. Should a surgeon, doing his best to protect the life of the baby, perform surgery and cut the baby to get the key out? Note that in this situation, the baby is incapable of deciding anything. Now what if it is an adult who swollowed the key, and the adult flat out refuses to undergo surgery. If the trapped man dies, is this person responsible in any way for that death?

I guess that depends on how/why he swallowed it in the first place, if it was intentional and if he knew the consequesnces.