A new ethical approach to abortion and its implications for the euthanasia dispute

Mr Gardner, a practising gynaecologist who is necessarily involved with abortion, suggests a view of the fetus which is between the positions commonly held: the fetus is a mass of cells, the fetus is a person from the moment of conception. He considers that from the moment of conception there is established a maternal-fetal unity. In that state the previable fetus is not an individual but is on the way to that status. The writer goes on to differentiate between the moral positions of the advocates of abortion and of euthanasia. Already legal safeguards for those antipathetic to abortion have been eroded in practice and so likewise would those be if the Euthanasia Bill were to become law.