Life Before Birth

Résumé du livre

Reports in newspapers and professional journals, debates on television and radio, raise both well-recognized and new moral dilemmas concerning abortion and treatment for infertility. Medicine is not practised in a vacuum but against a background of public and professional attitudes based on legislation, official statements from medical bodies and the teachings of the Churches. The aim of this book is both to inform and explore the issues, using the results of a three-year study undertaken by the Institute of Medical Ethics. It brings together, in summary, official statements on abortion and the treatment of infertility from medical, legislative and religious sources, and compares these with the way professional people discuss the ethics of medical practice. Theological and ethical analysis demonstrates that there are exciting signs of a developing moral consensus to help counterbalance the confusion surrounding the question of the status of life before birth.