TY - JOUR T1 - Fetuses, newborns, & parental responsibility JF - Journal of Medical Ethics JO - J Med Ethics SP - 188 LP - 193 DO - 10.1136/medethics-2019-105592 VL - 46 IS - 3 AU - Prabhpal Singh Y1 - 2020/03/01 UR - http://jme.bmj.com/content/46/3/188.abstract N2 - I defend a relational account of difference in the moral status between fetuses and newborns. The difference in moral status between a fetus and a newborn is that the newborn baby is the proper object of ‘parental responsibility’ whereas the fetus is not. ‘Parental responsibilities’ are a moral dimension of a ‘parent-child relation’, a relation which newborn babies stand in, but fetuses do not. I defend this relational account by analysing the concepts of ‘parent’ and ‘child’, and conclude that the difference in the moral status between fetuses and newborns means one may claim abortion is morally permissible while also claiming infanticide is not morally permissible, without inconsistency between the two claims. ER -