Lizza: potencialidade

There has been a great deal of debate over the moral   significance of the potentiality of human embryos and fetuses. Indeed, the standard argument against abortion and the use of human embryonic stem cells for research appeals to the potentiality that the fetus has to develop characteristics, such as intellect and will, that we normally associate with personhood. It is argued that in virtue of this potentiality, the fetus has value and is deserving of some respect, if not   all the rights and protections that are normally accorded to persons.

Potentiality has been less of an issue at the end of life, although it has figured in debate over the potential of individuals with total brain failure and those in permanent vegetative state. Because these individuals are thought to lack the potential for consciousness or any other mental function, proponents of a consciousness-related formulation of death argue that they are no longer living human beings or persons. Potentiality has also been an issue in discussion of the meaning of irreversibility in the defi nition and determination of death, particularly in the case of non-heart-beating organ   donation. In this context, “potentiality” and “irreversibility” may be complementary concepts in the sense that if some functions, such as circulation and respiration, can be said to be irreversibly lost, there is no potential for those functions to resume. Proponents of non-heart-beating organ donation and its critics disagree over whether the donors in these protocols are dead, that is, whether they have irreversibly lost circulatory and respiratory function. If they have not satisfied the criterion of death, critics argue that the removal of vital organs violates the “dead-donor rule” and is tantamount to vivisection. (p. 1)

https://b-ok.org/book/2639041/a5bce0