Potential Persons or Potential Problems?
Does recognizing such an obligation in the context of pregnancy involve treating women as incubators or ‘fetal containers’? Surely not: If I am a pregnant woman, it is no more treating me as an incubator to expect me to respect my baby’s body and allow it to remain within my own than it is treating the baby’s father as a cradle to expect him to avoid violent, reckless or negligent treatment of the baby after birth. At least until such time as other carers can take over, it is reasonable to expect those supporting a child to continue to do so, and in any case, to avoid deliberate harm and/or harmful bodily incursions on the child.
