Introduction

There is no inconsistency in asserting that it is wrong to destroy a potential person whilst denying that it is wrong to fail to actualise a possible person, one may now look at the practical consequences of such an assertion. In general it follows from this position that one can claim that contraception is not morally problematic, but that abortion, if it involves the death of a foetus with an active potential to become a person is morally wrong. This chapter begins with Michael Tooley's claim that the human foetus's potential to become a person is not fully active, because human foetuses cannot possess all of the positive causal factors of personhood. It also finds that the determination of whether each of the factors required for the development of personhood is a part of the background causal field or a one of the significant causal factors is in some ways an arbitrary choice.