One of the debate’s focuses is whether or not the fetus is a person. The conservative stance on this issue is that the fetus is a person from the moment of conception. Accordingly, the conservative opposes abortion at any stage of development for any reason except extreme cases where the mother’s life is in jeopardy. The justification used in these instances is the mother’s right to defend herself. However, some conservatives argue that if one life must be sacrificed and one saved (the mother or the fetus), then the morally just sacrifice would be the mother because the mother has lived for years and the fetus has not had the chance to experience. Since the conservative position holds that fetuses are persons with the right to life, conservatives ne

In contrast, the liberals support the theory that fetuses are not persons and they do not have the right to life. Some liberals hold personhood to the following criteria: consciousness, particularly the capacity to feel pain; self-motivated activity, relatively independent of genetic or external control; the capacity to communicate complex messages; and self-awareness and the presence of self-concepts. And, since fetuses lack these characteristics, abortion should have no legal or moral restrictions. Consequently, a fetus is not yet a human being so aborting it would be as immoral as terminating a cluster of cancer cells, for example. This theory, however, does present a lot of unanswered questions for which there are no answers, such as the question of infanticide. This question arises because of the fact that late-stage fetuses bear great resemblance to newborn infants.

The moderate position offers opposition to both the conservative position and the liberal position, saying that even if the fetus is a person with the right to life, it does not follow that abortion is always wrong; and even if the fetus is not a person and does not have the right to life, it does not follow that abortion is always permissible. Basically, the moderates contend that abortion

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