Personhood in the abortion debate

[Freddy]

Freddy:

That’s quite a trite answer to a very reasonable question that I think deserves a lot more thought.

I never thought that the Argument from Definition was trite.

‘Well, isn’t it obvious?’ is not going to get you far in any debate. Apart from offering no reason whatsoever why it is obvious to you there is the implication that to whomever that question is directed is too dense to appreciate obvious facts. And you immediately move from debate into argument.

 

[Freddy]

Magnanimity:

What I’m describing here is pretty foreign to normal western ways of thinking of human beings. So, I think some of my thoughts just aren’t really connecting with how (perhaps) you approach the world.

Well, I think I understood what you posted about it. I am familiar with the basic concept. The interconnectedness of people is a Catholic teaching. There’s the many parts in one body, the communion of saints, do unto others as you’d have them do unto you, etc…Maybe I just don’t give the interconnectedness of people as much weight as you do when it comes to attachment between people. But I’m willing to learn more if I’ve missed something. Maybe you could provide a link to something that explains it.

If I may…https://www.theemotionmachine.com/circles-of-empathy-why-we-care-about-people-to-different-degrees/

Freddy:

You seem to think that any attempt to try to understand why women have abortions is a tacit approval of them having them. Consequently, you read what you want into any post that does that and ignore any points made. However incontravertable.

Does one need to know the rationale behind armed robbery to know it is wrong?

Holy Toledo. We are NOT discussing whether it is right or wrong. You cannot be reading what I am writing…

We are discussing WHY it happens. If there are too many robberies in your neighbourhood, you don’t need to have a discussion about whether robbery is morally correct or not. You need to find out WHY it’s happening and work out a solution to reduce the incidents.

I mean, standing up on your chair and shouting ‘But it’s wrong!’ might satisfy your sense of righteous indignation but it is not going to solve the problem.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

You just need to acknowledge that fact. Then move on from there.

Pro-lifers are aware of the fact that some women think that way. So am I. But it’s not some universal feeling that all women have. Some women are actually very upset at having an early abortion.

The reason so many crisis pregnancy centers want to have an ultrasound machine is because a woman is less likely to have an abortion if she can see the baby and make an attachment to it. But there is still a need to correct the wrong underlying assumptions that are still out there. Such as…is it a clump of cells or a human being?..is every human being a person?..does an embryo have a right to life?

So that’s why I’m posting in this thread. It’s not to make practical adjustments in the field after acknowledging how women feel. It’s to help define the dignity that belongs to everyone.

If I may…

The stuff in that link was very 101.

 

[Freddy]

The stuff in that link was very 101.

Google is your friend.

 

[neophyte]

And you immediately move from debate into argument.

I don’t argue with people who are divorced from reality.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

And you immediately move from debate into argument.

I don’t argue with people who are divorced from reality.

Neither do you debate. So I’m not sure the reason for your posts.

 

[Thorolfr]

Freddy:

Unfortunately, God decided to make the sexual drive one of the strongest urges that exist in any animal on the whole planet. So that, coupled with the church teaching on contraception, was only going to lead to one result.

Tough problem…

The problem is not in God’s commandments, but in man, who doesn’t follow them, even though he has the real capacity to do so, being rational. We are not beasts, our actions are not fundamentally determined by our natural istincts.

Until a few days ago, I would have agreed that people who aren’t being coerced almost always have the capacity to decide to not have sex. But I just got a new book by Guy Leschziner, a neurologist who specializes in sleep disorders, The Nocturnal Brain: Nightmares, Neuroscience and the Secret World of Sleep (NY: St. Martin’s Press, 2019) and according to him, some people can do more than sleep walk in their sleep. They can eat, cook and even drive cars and motorcycles in their sleep, and some can have sex in their sleep.

 

[LeonardDeNoblac]

So we need a solution other than ‘you shouldn’t be doing it’.

No solution can ever involve an approval of sin or a cooperation by the government in it.

 

[LeonardDeNoblac]

They can eat, cook and even drive cars and motorcycles in their sleep, and some can have sex in their sleep.

Isn’t having sex with someone who is asleep essentially rape? And don’t say that someone can have sex with someone else without knowing they are asleep, anyone should be able to notice it.

 

[vz71]

If there are too many robberies in your neighbourhood, you don’t need to have a discussion about whether robbery is morally correct or not. You need to find out WHY it’s happening and work out a solution to reduce the incidents.

It doesn’t matter why.
The act needs to be stopped.

 

[vz71]

I mean, standing up on your chair and shouting ‘But it’s wrong!’ might satisfy your sense of righteous indignation but it is not going to solve the problem.

Straw man.

 

[vz71]

And I’ve spent quite some time trying to explain why women don’t think having an early abortion is a problem. And that reason is specifically tied into the concept of personhood.

It makes perfect sense that those who support abortion would try to tie in a concept of “personhood”
The concept is not definable in any meaningful or practical way.

 

[Magnanimity]

Maybe I just don’t give the interconnectedness of people as much weight as you do when it comes to attachment between people. But I’m willing to learn more if I’ve missed something. Maybe you could provide a link to something that explains it.

That’s very generous and broad-minded of you (maybe even magnanimous)! It’s hard for me to p(name removed by moderator)oint one source for my thoughts. Some of it has come from early church fathers (of the East). But, the primary source behind what I’m saying above comes from a little-known work by Scottish philosopher John MacMurray. A book was generated from some Gifford lectures that he had given. Other than pointing you to the book, I just did a search and this article seems to give a really good overview of MacMurray’s thoughts on persons-in-relation. To pique your interest, I’ll give some quotes from the article that are “on point” to our exchange here.

Macmurray argued that human reality is not intelligible as a derivative from more fundamental material or organic categories and only can be understood properly in terms of personhood. He saw the pressing task for philosophy as articulating “the form of the personal”; or, more specifically, those aspects in which persons differ from other existents.

While Macmurray claimed that thought is derivative of action, he also held that the human individual not only is an intentional agent who chooses and constructs experience through action, but also, a person who exists, from birth, in dynamic interaction with other persons, and whose particular kind of self-consciousness arises as a consequence of embeddedness in human relations… Personal existence, in Macmurray’s interpretation, is a relational becoming, an ongoing agentic activity in which we are constituted mutually by and with each other as persons. Personhood is created in an ever-present and pervasive relational dynamic by which we become present to ourselves and to each other.

Macmurray avers that it is only by virtue of our relations with others that the development of psychologically capable persons takes place. Personhood arises not solely because we are agents, but moreover, because we exist as agents among other agents. We are “persons in relation,” inextricably embedded in a nexus of social relations with others, and it only is through such relations that we come to know ourselves to exist and develop psychologically.

We survive and develop by learning to conform to an order created by the intentions of others. All developments that orient and give form to infantile life, are instigated by the intentions of others who equip the infant to become not just a surviving organism but a member of a personal community. From birth, our caregivers understand and respond to us as persons, and by so doing, initiate us into personhood.

 

[Magnanimity]

Human existence depends on thought and action. However, infants can neither think nor act. They are born utterly helpless and quickly perish without care. They depend for their lives on the thoughts and actions of others. As Macmurray observes, it is not the infant’s ability to adapt effectively to its circumstances that is key to its survival. Quite conversely, it is a complete absence of ability to do so that creates the relation of dependence essential to securing the infant’s life. Our survival and development takes shape as a relation of dependence inscribed by individual and collective intentions. This relation of dependence is most evident in infancy and early childhood. Infants are dependent on a mother or other caregiver who creates a shared existence in the effort to sustain them. In Macmurray’s description, the infant “lives a common life as one term in a personal relation” (1961, p. 50). We enter personhood, not as already integral individuals, but as an aspect of personal relatedness and coexistence.

@1Lord1Faith, let me know what you think, and if these paragraphs above are gelling with how you see humans existing in the world. What would you dispute about what you see above? What is controversial in MacMurray’s thoughts?

 

[Thorolfr]

Thorolfr:

They can eat, cook and even drive cars and motorcycles in their sleep, and some can have sex in their sleep.

Isn’t having sex with someone who is asleep essentially rape? And don’t say that someone can have sex with someone else without knowing they are asleep, anyone should be able to notice it.

From the case studies reported, it was the one who was asleep who was initiating the sex and making moves on the other person and it wasn’t always obvious that they were asleep, especially since it was in the middle of the night and usually in the dark.

If you saw someone come out of their house in the middle of the night and drive away in their car, would you think that they might be asleep? Some people didn’t know that they were driving in their sleep until a neighbor said they saw them drive away in the middle of the night and asked where they were going. These sleep drivers obviously have their eyes open and can see when they’re driving. They’re not driving around with their eyes closed so that someone seeing them might notice that they’re asleep.

Scientists now know that some parts of the brain can be asleep while other parts are awake. That’s how some people can do some very complicated tasks in their sleep.

 

[LeonardDeNoblac]

However, such cases should be so rare that they can hardly provide a justification for something as widespread as abortion.

 

[Thorolfr]

However, such cases should be so rare that they can hardly provide a justification for something as widespread as abortion.

I never thought that sleep sex could be a justification for abortion. I was only pointing out that people don’t always have the capacity to follow God’s commands. If someone has unchaste sex in their sleep, it couldn’t be considered a sin even if they were the ones who initiated the sex since the rational and memory storing parts of their brain are asleep.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

let me know what you think, and if these paragraphs above are gelling with how you see humans existing in the world. What would you dispute about what you see above? What is controversial in MacMurray’s thoughts?

Thanks that was a great read. For the most part, it does gel with the way I see people in the world. I’m not sure I could dispute anything in that article except to say that MacMurray, at least from what I read in that article, doesn’t seem to give as much credit to reflection, or will, as a factor in actions…at least not as much as I’m used to to hearing. Which is fine. And that also seems to be his point anyway.

I don’t see anything that I would call controversial either. But as is mentioned in the article, apparently MacMurray doesn’t give much thought to a woman’s progeny prior to birth. Which seems to me to be a lost opportunity to further drive home his thesis. If anything, MacMurray’s arguments would only further the personhood of a fetus, or even an embryo, just by virtue of the fact that MacMurray’s view of ‘personhood’ wouldn’t be possible without it. That is to say, women do a great deal of preparing for a family way before they are even capable of producing one. So the personhood of her progeny would be established before she even conceives.

 

[VanitasVanitatum]

No solution can ever involve an approval of sin or a cooperation by the government in it.

That means the government can’t cooperate in outlawing abortion. This sounds like a self imposed impedement to limiting abortion.

If there are too many robberies in your neighbourhood, you don’t need to have a discussion about whether robbery is morally correct or not. You need to find out WHY it’s happening and work out a solution to reduce the incidents.

Knowing why will help create a solution that will be more effective because it will cut off the root source of the problem. Not only that, but it will be more agreeable and easier to pass.

 

[Magnanimity]

If I may…https://www.theemotionmachine.com/circles-of-empathy-why-we-care-about-people-to-different-degrees/

Thanks Freddy. From the article, “Our lives are defined by the people that are right in front of us on a daily basis. Our family, our friends, our local community – “

There is plenty of truth in saying that we empathize most with those “right in front of us on a daily basis.” What I’ve long been curious about is the why of it. And I’ve touched on a number of factors that I believe contribute to the why that underlies this reality of empathy-boundaries. Metaphysically-speaking, what are we meaning when we say that those in our immediate circles “define” us? What is happening between and within two humans who get deeply connected with one another? That’s largely what I’ve been after in my posts above. The more we all can appreciate and understand this interconnectedness of human persons, then (perhaps) it could assist both sides in meaningfully conversing about abortion.