Life Before Birth provides a coherent framework for addressing bioethical issues connected to the moral status of embryos and fetuses. The book explores the conceptual and practical difficulties raised by abortion, prenatal torts, wrongful life, the crime of feticide, substance abuse by pregnant women, compulsory cesareans, assisted reproduction, and stem cell research.

Bonnie Steinbock received her Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1974. She began teaching philosophy at the College of Wooster, and moved to the University at Albany in 1977. Her area of specialization is bioethics, particularly reproduction and genetics.

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