The Legal Status of a Living Abortus

Les Haberfield's article, "The Transplantation of Human Fetal Tissue in Australia: Abortion, Consent and Other Legal Issues" appeared in (1996) 4 JLM 144. In that article he raised the issue of the legal status of a fetus that, although aborted, is in fact born alive. In this article I argue that any such fetus is, at law, a legal person and must be treated accordingly. This develops the suggestion made by Haberfield that such a fetus is "analogous" to a child, and has consequences for abortion practitioners, and for fetal tissue transplantation and experimentation.