ABSTRACT
This chapter will examine the changing status of the fetus and argue that the fetus now occupies two, seemingly contradictory, positions in medicine and society: the ‘disposable fetus’ of prenatal testing and the ‘protected fetus’ of the personhood movements. This chapter will advance two arguments. First, although these two views of the fetus appear to be contradictory, they share some key features. They are both premised on the conceptualisation of the fetus as a separate being from the mother, and they both are based on attributing certain types of interest to the fetus. Second, both these discourses of fetal value can compromise the autonomy of the pregnant woman, albeit in different ways, and how this plays out in health care and parenting practice will be explored.
