Word: fetus
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...experiment took place without publicity last June, and was only recently described at a medical meeting in Paris. The operation was performed when the child, David, was a 30-week-old fetus. So far, the results have been remarkable. Though he has been confined since birth to a germ-free flexible plastic bubble in order to protect him from the outside world, David, now seven months old, appears to have an immune system that is on the mend. If all goes well, David could leave his sterile prison by summer's end. Though his survival is not assured, the experiment...
...mother of three daughters who wants to hold out for a son? Or the couple that one day may be able to learn whether an unborn baby has a minor genetic blemish? Only the most hardened pro-choice advocate would argue that prospective parents have the right to abort fetus after fetus until they get the "perfect" baby...
Complicating such decisions is the fact that genetic prognostication will probably never be an exact science. Technicians may someday be able to determine that a fetus has a predisposition to heart disease, certain cancers, or a variety of psychiatric illnesses. But they will not be able to predict precisely when -- or even if -- the affliction will strike, how severe it will be and how long and good a life the baby can expect. As scientists learn to detect ever more minute imperfections in a strand of DNA, it will become increasingly difficult to distinguish between genetic abnormalities and normal human...
...much as pro-choice advocates emphasize the position of the woman in defending abortion, what is really at stake is whether the child will continue to live or not--or at the very least be born. Even if one holds that the fetus is not alive, it definitely will be, and thus abortion clearly ends a life: the one that would...
...four years since crack hit U.S. streets like hard rain, hospitals have experienced an epidemic of sick, undersized newborns. Crack affects the fetus by constricting the baby's blood vessels and restricting passage of nutrients and oxygen. Even one "hit" can cause fetal damage. At Oakland's Highland General Hospital, doctors say about 18% of some 2,400 births in 1988 were crack-afflicted babies...