ABSTRACT
Even if a post-24-week-old foetus is conscious though, what significance does this have for the debate over the nature and significance of its potential? As we have seen, to have an active potential to become a person the human foetus would need to manifest all of the morally significant positive causal factors necessary for the development of personhood: that is, it would need to possess a species-typical genetic structure, it would need to be sentient, conscious, and possess a capacity to interact with the social world. Prior to 24 weeks of development we know that a human foetus does not manifest all of these properties; it may possess a genetic structure sufficient to enable it to become conscious, but it is not yet sufficiently mature enough to actually do so. Even if the pre-24-week-old foetus is sentient as Glover and Fisk argue, it is not yet conscious: it does not yet have the capacity to consciously perceive and interact with the social world, consequently it cannot become self-aware, and cannot develop into a person. Thus, a pre-24-week-old foetus cannot possess an active potential to become a person.1
