Personhood in the abortion debate

[LeonardDeNoblac]

Again, what makes the death of the 10 yo worse for the parents? Why would her parents, siblings and BFF say “it’s like a part of me died too?” Why does this happen? What accounts for it?

This happens because they are more akin to people they are related to, so they are more aware of their dignity as persons. But people don’t become less humans in nature simply because they are less related to others. Remember that we are talking about fundamental human dignity, the dignity every man possesses for being human.

Even if one grants that there is a baseline of human dignity/value/worth that all possess, it doesn’t follow that this dignity cannot increase or decrease, relative to how intermingled the person’s life is with others around her.

Again, we are talking about fundamental dignity and fundamental rights. Dignity and rights that every man possesses for being a man. Of course there are some limited contexts in wich some people could have more or less relative importance (for example, if you can’t help everyone, it’s reasonable to help your relatives, your friends and your concitiziens first ). But we are not talking about those situations.

 

[meltzerboy2]

People still decide morality for themselves even WITH G-d, because there are different interpretations of G-d and His will for us according to different religious beliefs and even within the same religion. According to Jewish belief and law, the embryo is NOT yet a person although it is in the process of developing into one, and therefore has no claim to personhood. This is coupled with the argument that the ensoulment of the embryo (and even the fetus) has not yet taken place until the actual moment of birth of the baby. Still, abortion for no OTHER reason except that the baby is “inconvenient” is not permitted. There must be compelling circumstances such as the physical or psychological health and life of the mother, the health and life of a twin healthy baby being (unintentionally) threatened by the ill baby, or the probability of the baby’s being born SEVERELY disabled, physically or mentally. Catholicism has different rules about abortion, as do other religions, all of which retain G-d in the picture. This is why abortion MUST be the decision of the individual woman together with her family, doctor, and clergy, if she has one.

 

[meltzerboy2]

The mental patient, however, does NOT lose their personhood status because no one can. And, on a religious level, once ensoulment takes place (according to Judaism, at the moment of birth), it cannot be undone.

 

[LeonardDeNoblac]

This is religious indifferentism. No Catholic (nor any religious person truly committed to his/her beliefs ) can accept it.

 

[meltzerboy2]

I would not call it religious indifferentism but rather religious tolerance. We should not impose our religious beliefs on others, particularly in a pluralistic society. If, however, the society forces us to have an abortion, which is contrary to our beliefs, we must fight against such an unjust law.

 

[LeonardDeNoblac]

Religious tolerance has limits. The criteria for determining these limits is morality. If you think morality is objective (and I think you believe it ), you should recognize that moral claims can be verified or falsified.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

We’re not talking potency.

Well, personhood involves also potency. If it wasn’t so, a mentally instable person or a person in a state of coma (or even a sleeping person ) wouldn’t be a person.

A mentally unstable person or a person in a state of coma or even a sleeping person has a brain that is fully functioning. It’s not that a few weeks into pregnancy the embryo doesn’t have a fully functioning brain. It doesn’t have a brain at all.

It’s like saying that you shouldn’t destroy a piece of marble because it has the potency to become Michaelangelo’s David. It’s not a statue. It’s a piece of marble. If it becomes a statue then you would treat it differently. And it’s not a person, because a week or so after conception it’s just a few cells. If it becomes a person then you likewise treat it differently.

 

[Freddy]

LeonardDeNoblac:

Real distinction doesn’t necessarily imply separation.

But what might community-of-persons imply about individuality? How do you think it should clarify what we mean by individual and humans as really distinct?

Doesn’t that make human dignity accidental and not essential?

It would make human dignity augmentable (and capable of receding). There could be a baseline of dignity, I suppose, that any and all humans possess. But the more intermingled and co-identified a particular human becomes with other persons (and those person with the particular—it’s a reciprocating process: persons-in-relation) then yes, it certainly seems that dignity/value/worth can increase.

it seems like an argument based on attachment.

So, what undergirds the attachment? The attachments of humans are real, they’re not fictions. What explains them? I don’t know the full explanation, but at some level it must be co-identification and intermingling of personhood. This is precisely why people use language like “it’s as if a part of me died too” when describing the loss of a loved one. And the more entangled your identity is with that loved one, the more you will really lose a part of yourself in that loved one’s death.

For example, is someone really upset about the death of a ‘fully developed’ person who they have absolutely no attachment to?

Quite right, but this is the point I’m making, isn’t it?

And, wouldn’t someone dying of old age be mourned more than anybody else?

So let’s imagine (as macabre as this might be to do so) various deaths.
A fetus dying in utero
Death of a newborn (say a 1 month old)
Death of one’s 10 y.o. daughter
Death of an old man who rarely showed any love to anyone at all, sort of despised his kids, divorced and never remarried, lost contact with everyone at the end.
Death of Jimmy Carter
Death of St JP2

What is it, do you think, that makes the relative communities experiences of all these deaths different? Would it not be the extent to which the life lost is entangled/co-identified/related to others?

The loss of JP2 will be felt the world over. To a lesser extent so would the death of President Carter. How about the old, miserable man dying alone? Who really mourns the death of the fetus? Certainly, the parents, siblings maybe, grandparents possibly. Yet, once this child is born, even if it passes at a month old, wouldn’t this be more devastating to all those familial parties at that time? And then the unimaginable loss of the 10 year old, we all know to be positively soul-crushing to parents, siblings, best-friends, etc. Those left behind saw themselves in the 10 yo and the 10 yo in themselves—real relations, co-identification. So all I’m asking is, if gradualism of human dignity/value/worth isn’t true, what accounts for all of this differentiation?

Very well put.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

So all I’m asking is, if gradualism of human dignity/value/worth isn’t true, what accounts for all of this differentiation?

I’m saying that dignity/value/worth is not gradual. It’s intrinsic for people. It doesn’t matter if it’s a fetus or an old man. Both have the same intrinsic dignity/value/worth.

The real gradation comes with attachment. And some people seem to conflate emotional (largely emotional) attachment with the dignity/value/worth of a person.

So what is attachment? I would say it is a combination of emotional and physical investment, hope for the future, and sentiment. The emotional and physical investment explains why a 10 week old miscarriage can be gotten over fairly quickly by most people. The hope for the future explains why the timely death of a patriarchal old man isn’t mourned as much as a ten year old’s untimely death. And sentiment is ubiquitous across nearly every death to varying degrees.

So I see attachment as being distinct from dignity/worth. Two different things. One is dependent on circumstances and various factors. The other is intrinsic.

 

[Freddy]

Of course there are some limited contexts in wich some people could have more or less relative importance (for example, if you can’t help everyone, it’s reasonable to help your relatives, your friends and your concitiziens first ). But we are not talking about those situations.

You need to expand on this.

You are right that people are more concerned about those they know. It’s a fact that charities personalise requests to people for donations with a picture or a few words about an individual - help THIS child, rather than send money to help a thousand faceless people.

You know your immediate family and friends as people. Therefore you care about them. But, to be brutally frank, we are not capable of caring about those about whom we know nothing. It wouldn’t serve us individually, or serve our familes, if we spent every waking moment worrying about everyone on the planet who needed help. There is an inbuilt, psychological limit to how much we can care about others.

And this is obvious. We know AS A FACT that children are dying in remote parts of the world as I type this and as you read it. If we knew them personally, as people, then we would be devasted. But what are you really concerned about right now? I’m frustrated that we’re out of milk so I have to walk up to the local shop. Not deaths in Darfur.

Now you can argue that these people who are dying (right now) have inherrent dignity. As much as you and I. But does that change your attitude to these faceless people? Not in the slightest. Neither of us are going to do anything to help them.

So whether someone agrees with you or not about a few cells possibly having dignity as a potential human being, then if they do not (and cannot) relate to them as a person, then they aren’t going to be worried about having an abortion.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

This point must be understood for any discussion to be in any way meaningfull.

Discussion of what? Discussion of a definition of a word in a certain context?

You have taken a word from my post, changed its context, and therefore it’s meaning.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

This point must be understood for any discussion to be in any way meaningfull.

Discussion of what? Discussion of a definition of a word in a certain context?

You have taken a word from my post, changed its context, and therefore it’s meaning.

Discussion of what? Abortion. And why women have no problem in having early term abortions.

And what word was it that I changed the meaning? I am disputing that dignity and worth are the same. I’m not changing the meaning of either. And I gave examples to back up my assertion. You are free to dispute them if you choose. I’ll be here to discuss it anytime you’re ready.

 

[Magnanimity]

So what is attachment? I would say it is a combination of emotional and physical investment, hope for the future, and sentiment. The emotional and physical investment explains why a 10 week old miscarriage can be gotten over fairly quickly by most people. The hope for the future explains why the timely death of a patriarchal old man isn’t mourned as much as a ten year old’s untimely death.

This is a well thought out response, so I appreciate it. There is plenty of truth in what you’re saying here. I would not so much deny your claims here as I would say that they are inadequate. You’ve given a very “Western” response wherein all humans are islands unto themselves and where identity is merely something that we all just create, in and of ourselves.

But, I submit to you that this hyper-individualistic viewpoint is woefully inadequate to account for the reality of human interconnectedness. As all of us know who have children of our own, they’re not equivalent to retirement portfolios or houses or careers (which are all examples of crucially important “investments”). Parents don’t give their lives for houses, portfolios or careers. But, in an instant, the mother will push her child out of the way of the oncoming bus, even if it means she gets sacrificed in the process (run over). I hope for the future of my retirement portfolio. But if it does not do well, even if it does poorly, I will be saddened by this. But it will not form lifelong scars about which I will cry on innumerable nights. And yet the untimely death of a child will do all of these things. The untimely death of a close sibling or our best friends will also keep us up nights in sorrow. These close relationships form us, they help turn us into who we are. Human lives are much more intermingled then we often admit.

Investment, hope and sentiment are all there and part of the process, but they are not nearly enough to explain the lifelong wounds/scars/pain of losing a 10 yo child untimely. I want you to really consider what it means when people say “when I lost her, a part of myself died too.” What would have to be antecedentally true for someone to say this? Wha happens in the deepest of human connections? Consider your relationship with your children. Or with your best friend for life. Do you not contribute to the formation of each other? Is there not real interconnectedness/ intermingling of the two persons?

 

[Magnanimity]

Very well put.

Thanks Freddy. I’m just trying to help broaden the discussion and perspectives here.

It’s certainly different to dignity. But an individual’s dignity and how we define their worth are two different things. It could be argued that a saint and a mass murderer have equal inherent dignity. But equal worth? I think not.

It’s a good point. Often in these matters I use these three terms interchangeably. But I’m not married to any of them. If you see it problematic to equate dignity with value, I can live with that.

My primary purpose here is just to get pro-lifers (of which I am one) to squarely deal with the realities that undergird gradualist arguments in this debate. They are not weak arguments, and I think they point to significant things about the human experience, like the intermingling of persons and co-identification. And a secondary argument I have going is against hyper-individualism in these discussions.

So is the worth of a few cells and a fully developed baby the same? If a woman loses both, which would have the greater effect?

This point must be understood for any discussion to be in any way meaningfull.

Very well said, yourself.

 

[LeonardDeNoblac]

It’s like saying that you shouldn’t destroy a piece of marble because it has the potency to become Michaelangelo’s David. It’s not a statue. It’s a piece of marble. If it becomes a statue then you would treat it differently. And it’s not a person, because a week or so after conception it’s just a few cells. If it becomes a person then you likewise treat it differently.

There’s a fundamental difference. A piece of marble doesn’t develop naturally and spontaneously into a statue. In this case,a contingent external efficient cause (the sculptor ) is required for the potency to be actualized.
Instead, a zygote, immediately after conception, starts to develop into a complete human body naturally and spontaneously. In this case, no other contingent external efficient cause is required, because the process of actualization is already going on.

 

[QwertyGirl]

starts to develop into a complete human body naturally and spontaneously

As a woman who has endured pregnancy, I respectfully disagree.
The woman’s body is the sculptor.

 

[Magnanimity]

Instead, a zygote, immediately after conception, starts to develop into a complete human body naturally and spontaneously. In this case, no other contingent external efficient cause is required, because the process of actualization is already going on.

@QwertyGirl is correct. You’ve vastly overstated the independence of the human person here (the zygote). Everything a zygote is at conception, it derives from others - the mother and father. Everything the zygote receives in order to cell-split and grow and mature, it gathers from the mother. So, even in a human’s most primordial state, she begins her intermingled, interconnected existence. This entanglement, this community-of-persons continues at birth where the newborn baby can do little besides drink, pass waste and express discomfort and/or the need for physical connection with the mother. From conception, humans are interconnected, entangled, co-identified with each other: humans are, most fundamentally, persons-in-relation, not separate islands.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

I think we’re talking past each other a little bit. I hear what you’re saying about interconnectedness. I would say that it’s encompassed in what I meant to convey when I used the word investment. There is certainly a reciprocal element to every relationship. And I didn’t mean to create such a cold idea as that of retirement portfolio.

I’m not sure how far you would take the “a part of me died with them” point. Is it based just on the reciprocity of the two in a relationship? Or is it a more spiritual connection? I would think it would be based on a sort of kindred aspect that may exist between the two. The varying degrees of which may have a direct effect on how attached two people are to each other. But I don’t see how the closeness of a given relationship has any bearing on the personhood of either person involved.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

And what word was it that I changed the meaning? I am disputing that dignity and worth are the same.

The combination of the two words with a forward slash should have let you know that the same general idea was being conveyed with two different words. If you’d like to argue the obvious point that the word worth can also have another meaning then feel free. I’m not going to disagree with you on that.

So per your examples you’re speaking about subjective worth in very general terms. ‘Worth’ as in a consensus of what society gets out of a person. I would argue that is not a measure of personhood. It’s too subjective and open to abuse. It’s reminiscent of the 19 century’s eugenics movement.

Likewise a frozen embryo and a child. Equal dignity? You might say so. But which do you save from the burning building?

A frozen embryo? It’s not living. It’s frozen.

What point are you trying to get across here?

 

[Richard_White]

The notion that an unborn human is not a person because he or she lacks cognitive faculties is a quite slippery slope indeed. By that logic, humans with serious cognitive impairments or intellectual disabilities or those in a comas/vegetative states are not persons, either. This is not true and is therefore a totally unsound argument.

May God bless you all!