2 questions for Pro-Choicers

[jochoa]

Do you recognize people who have passed away are persons?

 

[jochoa]

Also, what do you propose is the difference between being a person and personhood is?

 

[Freddy]

Do you recognize people who have passed away are persons?

They used to be.

 

[Freddy]

Also, what do you propose is the difference between being a person and personhood is?

Oh, good grief. Is this all there’s going to be? Semantics?

If you have personhood, then you are a person. If you are a person then you have…personhood. Manhood and you’re a man. Boyhood and you’re a boy. Womanhood and you’re a woman.

 

[jochoa]

Aside from avoiding faults in logic, I can’t understand how you can accept a position that indicates a deceased person in a casket isn’t a person.

 

[Benadam]

Pardon me for butting in. A disembodied soul is not a person and a corpse is not a person. A human requires wholeness to be considered a rational creature.

 

[jochoa]

Pardon me for butting in. A disembodied soul is not a person and a corpse is not a person. A human requires wholeness to be considered a rational creature.

I find the Catechism indicates a soul is a person:
“ 363 In Sacred Scripture the term “soul” often refers to human life or the entire human person.”

I recognize a distinction in that though a body alone isn’t a person, yet there is more than meets the eye when seeing a dead body, one should see a spirit and a soul which references the person. Similarly, when seeing a zygote, one should see a soul/person.

 

[Benadam]

I agree with you about the zygote but a disembodied soul is not a whole person. A person is an individual rational being.

 

[jochoa]

Would you please share a Catholic resource? I shared the CCC.

 

[Freddy]

Aside from avoiding faults in logic, I can’t understand how you can accept a position that indicates a deceased person in a casket isn’t a person.

Now a dead body is a person… When I have already given my definition that you at least need a working cerebral cortex. I’m pretty certain it’s inoperative in a corpse. I guess it’s eaier to ignore that rather than address it if you don’t have a response.

Of course, if you’re right I wonder how long the person exists in that casket. Is it still there when it’s buried? Cremated? Is there a time limit? When it’s completely decomposed then do we still have a person? When there is literally nothing left then where’s this person?

 

[goout]

goout:

On what basis will you persuade anyone, if you have no foundation for human dignity beyond “socially defined things”?

A good example is the US constitution. Admittedly it is a deist document but minimally so. Most legislation in democracies result from exactly this sort of discussion. People are good at it.

You’re avoiding the question. You avoid by simply pointing to another socio/political construct.

 

[goout]

jochoa:

Aside from avoiding faults in logic, I can’t understand how you can accept a position that indicates a deceased person in a casket isn’t a person.

Now a dead body is a person… When I have already given my definition that you at least need a working cerebral cortex. I’m pretty certain it’s inoperative in a corpse. I guess it’s eaier to ignore that rather than address it if you don’t have a response.

Of course, if you’re right I wonder how long the person exists in that casket. Is it still there when it’s buried? Cremated? Is there a time limit? When it’s completely decomposed then do we still have a person? When there is literally nothing left then where’s this person?

Try this on for size:
Rather than relying on attributes, to be human is existential. A human being has an “I Am” quality that is essential and primary to things like size, shape, sex, consciousness, capability to reason, etc…
Existence is not excluding these attributes, but is primary to them and essential.
(Concerning our deceased brothers and sisters, Catholicism recognizes the the communion of saints. Our deceased are still existing even though the body is inanimate at the point of death)

 

[meltzerboy2]

The science may be sufficient, but do most of us really understand the science? Further, even if the science is self-evident, it is often mixed with religion, morality as well as politics. That is the point at which the morality of abortion and the politics of abortion become trickier even than the science.

 

[meltzerboy2]

So would I. The means of obtaining such knowledge may be terrible but the knowledge itself can be put to good use in saving lives. Don’t Christians also believe this, not that the ends justifies the means, but that goodness can come from evil?

And with regard to whether the zygote is a person, I think in Judaism a distinction is drawn between person and human, such that the person is not there yet since the formation is a process up to birth whereas the human cell, then tissue, is part of that process of developing into a person.

 

[jochoa]

…my definition that you at least need a working cerebral cortex.

Your definition of personhood needing at least a working cerebral cortex doesn’t align with your position of:

…there is no point at which what a woman is carrying becomes a person.

Because people in the womb have working cerebral cortexes .

Of course, if you’re right I wonder how long the person exists in that casket. Is it still there when it’s buried? Cremated? Is there a time limit? When it’s completely decomposed then do we still have a person? When there is literally nothing left then where’s this person?

The entirety of the person exists in the mind of God as a soul, while the deceased body reminds us of the person’s spirit/soul. The soul will continue to exist as long as God decides, even if the body fully decays.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

jochoa:

Aside from avoiding faults in logic, I can’t understand how you can accept a position that indicates a deceased person in a casket isn’t a person.

Now a dead body is a person… When I have already given my definition that you at least need a working cerebral cortex. I’m pretty certain it’s inoperative in a corpse. I guess it’s eaier to ignore that rather than address it if you don’t have a response.

Of course, if you’re right I wonder how long the person exists in that casket. Is it still there when it’s buried? Cremated? Is there a time limit? When it’s completely decomposed then do we still have a person? When there is literally nothing left then where’s this person?

Try this on for size:
Rather than relying on attributes, to be human is existential. A human being has an “I Am” quality that is essential and primary to things like size, shape, sex, consciousness, capability to reason, etc…
Existence is not excluding these attributes, but is primary to them and essential.
(Concerning our deceased brothers and sisters, Catholicism recognizes the the communion of saints. Our deceased are still existing even though the body is inanimate at the point of death)

Capability to reason? I don’t think even a newly born child can do that, let alone a few cells.

And the second point is a religious one which obviously doesn’t relate to me.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

…my definition that you at least need a working cerebral cortex.

Your definition of personhood needing at least a working cerebral cortex doesn’t align with your position of:

…there is no point at which what a woman is carrying becomes a person.

Because people in the womb have working cerebral cortexes .

Of course, if you’re right I wonder how long the person exists in that casket. Is it still there when it’s buried? Cremated? Is there a time limit? When it’s completely decomposed then do we still have a person? When there is literally nothing left then where’s this person?

The entirety of the person exists in the mind of God as a soul, while the deceased body reminds us of the person’s spirit/soul. The soul will continue to exist as long as God decides, even if the body fully decays.

When they develop a working cerebral cortex then there is an argument to be put forward that we have a person. And that happens before a baby is born.

And when I say there is no point at which what a woman is carrying becomes a person I obviously mean no specific point. It doesn’t happen on the 5th week or the 20th week. It is a gradual process.