"Life Before Birth provides a coherent framework for addressing bioethical issues in which the moral status of embryos and fetuses is relevant. It is based on the "interest view" which ascribes moral standing to beings with interests, and connects the possession of interests with the capacity for conscious awareness or sentience. The theoretical framework is applied to ethical and legal topics, including abortion, prenatal torts, wrongful life, the crime of feticide, substance abuse by pregnant women, compulsory cesareans, assisted reproduction, and stem cell research. Along the way, difficult philosophical problems, such as identity and the non-identity problem are thoroughly explored. The book will be of interest not only to philosophers, but also physicians, lawyers, policy makers, and anyone perplexed by the many difficulties surrounding the unborn." -- Publisher description.

The Interest View -- Consciousness and Interests-- Is Consciousness Necessary for Having Interests? -- Is Consciousness Sufficient for Having Interests?-- The Interests of Nonconscious Individuals-- Dead People / Permanently Unconscious People / Infants With Anencephaly -- Future People-- The Parfit Problem and the Farther Future-- Potential People: Embryos and Fetuses -- Abortion -- The Moral Standing of the Fetus-- The Conservative Position/ Fetal Sentience/ Implantation/ The Person view/ The Right to Life-- The Argument from Potential-- The Logical Problem/ Contraception and the Moral Standing of Gametes -- The Future-Like-Ours Account -- Identity-- The Embodied Mind Account/ The Biological view/ The Interest view and the TRIA/Sentient Fetuses-- Possible People-- The Nonidentity Problem-- The Argument from Bodily Self-Determination-- Thomson's Defense of Abortion / Roe v. Wade -- The Moral and Legal Significance of ability-- Late Abortions/ Partial-Birth Abortion -- Beyond Abortion: The Fetus in Tort and Criminal Law -- Recovery for Prenatal Injury in Torts-- Against Third Parties / The Irrelevance of ability / Preconception Torts Against the Mother / The Woman's Right of Privacy / Automobile Liability-- Prenatal Wrongful Death-- Wrongful-Death Actions / Implications for Abortion -- The Criminal Law-- Prenatal Neglect/ Homicide-- Wrongful Life Suits -- Maternal-Fetal Conflict -- Moral Obligations to the Not-Yet-Born-- Risks to the Fetus/ Legal Drugs/ Illegal Drugs-- Legal and Policy Implications-- Extending Child-Abuse Laws / Criminal Penalties for Petal Abuse / Jailing the Pregnant Addict / Compulsory Cesareans -- Assisted Reproductive Technology -- The Science of ART-- In vitro Fertilization/ Health Risks to Women/ Health Risks to Offspring-- Procreate Liberty and Its Critics-- John Robertson/ Adoption and the Right to Have Biologically Related Children/ Core Values and Penumbral Interests/ The Interests of Children and the Nonidentity Problem -- Limits to Procreate Liberty-- Postmenopausal Mothers/ Multiple Births/ Octomom-- Dispositional Problems-- Das v. Das/ Klein v. Klein-- Gamete Donation-- Sperm Donation/ Egg Donation -- Stem Cell Research -- The Science-- Adult Stem Cells/Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells/Cloning: Reproductive v. Therapeutic-- The Moral Standing of the Human Embryo-- The Twinning Problem/ Respect for Embryos/ Kantian Respect/ Moral Standing v. Moral Value/ The Basis for Ascribing Moral Value to Human Embryos -- The Discarded-Created Distinction -- Payment for Oocytes-- Chimeras, Hybrids and Cybrids-- Law and Policy in the United States-- Cloning Policy -- Law and Policy in Other Countries-- United Nations Declaration on Human Cloning-- Index