ABSTRACT
This chapter examines some major areas of biomedical ethics that play key roles in deciding to whom the moral principles apply and to what extent. It discusses the debate about the definition of death to see when people believe they should quit treating a human as having the full moral standing that is attributed to normal humans. The chapter analyzes the other end of life to the even more controversial area of abortion to see when people should begin treating humans as having full moral standing. It explains the controversy over animals to see whether any non-human animals have moral standing and, if so, how much. Proving that some non moral characteristic such as self-awareness or a unique genetic code is what it takes to establish full moral standing is extremely difficult to do.
