Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva reject arguments from claims that fetuses and newborn infants are potential persons, because they argue that potential persons cannot be harmed.1 But whether or not potential persons can be harmed, is it clear that potential persons are entirely lacking in moral status, of a kind that could count as a (pro tanto) reason against bringing about their demise? We do not generally regard potential as entirely lacking in moral value until it is actualised. For example, parents who believe they have identified in their child an emerging musical talent commonly see this potential as having some (not necessarily moral) value, however small, which would count as a reason against destroying that potential gratuitously. Similarly, the morally valuable capacities involved in standard philosophical conceptions of person-hood (such as capacities for self-awareness, to form meaningful social relationships, and to experience various emotions) can be plausibly thought to confer a derivative moral value on the potential to develop such capacities, thereby grounding some level of moral status in a fetus and an infant. Indeed, many women and couples regard a fetus's potential to develop morally valuable characteristics as placing the onus on them to have sufficiently strong reasons to justify aborting it. However, this moral status is not plausibly regarded as absolute, and it is commonly seen as lower than that of an individual who has actualised their potential for these valuable characteristics.
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