Personhood of the fetus

[Rence]

The principle of equality applies to the unborn as well as those have benefited from their parents’ decision not to prevent them from being born. Those who disagree expect to have one law for themselves and another for those who are vulnerable and cannot speak for themselves.

But today, those expectations are the reality. Currently, the patient who has the right to consent or refuse treatment has that choice, and currently, it’s the woman. To give it to someone else to override the woman would just cause a cascade of problems. The best way to prevent abortion is to change the heart and mind of the woman so that she chooses life, rather than trying to take women back in time to when they had no rights to direct their healthcare decisions.

 

[tonyrey]

The principle of equality applies to the unborn as well as those have benefited from their parents’ decision not to prevent them from being born. Those who disagree expect to have one law for themselves and another for those who are vulnerable and cannot speak for themselves. But today, those expectations are the reality. Currently, the patient who has the right to consent or refuse treatment has that choice, and currently, it’s the woman. To give it to someone else to override the woman would just cause a cascade of problems. The best way to prevent abortion is to change the heart and mind of the woman so that she chooses life, rather than trying to take women back in time to when they had no rights to direct their healthcare decisions.

If you teach children the woman alone should decide whether her unborn child should live or die you are giving them the impression that she has an absolute right to do what she likes with her own body regardless of the rights of her unborn child. They should be taught that all unborn children have a right to life and leave it at that.

 

[Rence]

If you teach children the woman alone should decide whether her unborn child should live or die you are giving them the impression that she has an absolute right to do what she likes with her own body regardless of the rights of her unborn child. They should be taught that all unborn children have a right to life and leave it at that.

They should, but that’s a bit simplistic, especially for cultures and religions that believe differently. You can’t just ‘leave it at that’, because it creates more confusion when medical issues in the woman arise. Sometimes, ignorance is not bliss. At least Catholics have it spelled out for them in the Catechism, which, if you’ll notice, does not just leave it at that, but explains the teachings of the Church thoroughly in these matters.

 

[tonyrey]

They should, but that’s a bit simplistic, especially for cultures and religions that believe differently. You can’t just ‘leave it at that’, because it creates more confusion when medical issues in the woman arise. Sometimes, ignorance is not bliss. At least Catholics have it spelled out for them in the Catechism, which, if you’ll notice, does not just leave it at that, but explains the teachings of the Church thoroughly in these matters.

Where does the Catechism - as it is taught to children - spell out this question?

 

[danserr]

(1) strikes me as false. “I” refers to a being that is essentially a person (Pruss at the time of writing), but fetuses aren’t persons.

Further, why should we think it’s wrong to deprive a fetus of becoming a person rather than just lamentable?

Should we think it’s wrong to deprive a fetus of becoming a person? Well, that depends on whether fetuses have rights. If they have no rights, then we have no duties to them: we can’t wrong them. I see no reason why we should think they have rights though.

Could you clarify what you mean by “lamentable”? I may be missing something, but it seems that if you are admitting that to deprive of fetus of becoming a person is regrettable, undesirable, negative etc, then you are admitting to at least a presumption that we should not do it.

To repeat then, here are the three premises of the argument:

1. I was once a fetus
2. If I was once a fetus, it was wrong to kill that fetus
3. If it was wrong to kill me as a fetus, it would be wrong to kill anyone as a fetus.

3 is probably undeniable. Two is tough to deny (though you seem to). You really almost have to deny premise 1.

I. Now in defense of my 1, (I was once a fetus) and against your claim that I was never a fetus, I offer (following Pruss):

1. When the sperm from my father and egg from my mother met and fertilized, a new organism was formed. (Call it embryo Bob). For 9 months Bob the embryo continues to develop, growing into a fetus and then being born.
2. Add a basic metaphysical principle: If an organism that once existed has never died, then this organism still exists. To quote Pruss:

. I am not going to argue for this principle. Someone who thinks something can exist at time A and not exist at a later time B, without having ceased to exist in between, is beyond the reach of argument.

1. Bob the embryo has never died. Bob’s cells have divided, differentiated, and developed, but nowhere in this process is there anything we can identify as the death of Bob. Actually, not only is there nothing we would identify as death, what happens is the opposite, growth! The continuity of Bob’s development speaks against the claim that he died.
2. If Bob has never died, then he is still alive. But if Bob is still alive, where is he? Well, that is easy. Every part of Bob developed into me. Every part of me has developed from Bob. I am Bob. The embryo has become a fetus, an embryo, a neonate, an infant, a child, an adolescent, then an adult.
3. So, it makes the most sense to say that I was once a fetus.
4. If I was once a fetus it was wrong to kill that fetus
5. By killing me now you deprive me of the rest of my life.
6. By killing me when I was a fetus, you do precisely the same wrong to me. Namely, you deprive me of the rest of my life. Actually, the crime may be worse because in depriving me of the rest of my life as a fetus, then you deprive me of even more life.
7. If I am not a person as a fetus, then you deprive me (who am numerically identical and the same being as the fetus) of something even greater, my future personhood.

If this is true, then the conclusion follows:
3.: Since it would have been wrong to kill me as a fetus, it would be wrong to kill anyone as a fetus

Your objections:

1. You objections essentially depend on a denial of 1 (that I was once of fetus). Even though you also raise an objection to 2, to succeed, it really depends on your denial of 1.
   So, since I have laid out 1 more clearly above, I will leave that alone for now, save it say that it seems clear to me that the being that is I was once a fetus.
2. For your second objection, you seem to argue that fetuses have no rights, and so cannot be wronged. You don’t actually give an argument for this (maybe you didn’t intend to in a short reply), but there are additional problems with that position.

This seems to me to depend on an implausible denial of the claim that I was once a fetus. I say this because I would follow Pruss and say that it is an essential property of me to have human dignity. Pruss:

Human dignity is an essential property: it is part of the essence of who I am–were I to lack this intrinsic dignity, I would not be myself, I would not exist. But if human dignity understood in this way is an essential property and I have it, then the fetus that I was also had it–otherwise it wouldn’t be an essential property.

Hence, if we grant 1 as I think we must, then we seem compelled to grant that fetuses have human dignity. If so, then they can be wronged.

An Additional Argument: That fetuses are persons

Let me ask out of curiosity why you don’t think a fetus is a person and what qualifies a human being for personhood.

Now, nothing I have said so far depends on the claim that a fetus is a person. These arguments would show that it is wrong to kill a fetus even if it is not a person. All they depend on is that claim that I was once a fetus, which seems eminently defensible. That being said, I add here an arguement that the fetus is indeed a person.

1. being a person is an essential property of every person. If someone were a person and personhood were removed from him, he would cease to exist. Now you seem to agree with this. You say that I am essentially a person.
2. I was once a fetus. (defended above).
3. from 1 and 2, it follows that a fetus is a person. If it is true that I was once a fetus, and that I am now a person, and that being a person is an essential property of my identity, then it follows that a fetus is a person.

• Therefore, a fetus is a person

 

[Rence]

Where does the Catechism - as it is taught to children - spell out this question?

The catechism doesn’t teach anything to children. Not one thing, let alone the immorality of abortion. It’s part of a child’s ongoing education in Church teaching that brings catechism (and encyclicals) to them, through their schools and their especially their parents. It’s up to the parents and Catholic schools to teach children the contents of the Catechism (and encyclicals) – it’s in this way that they will come to know where to go when they’re old enough to read and understand it. But to leave children ignorant of real life situations and conflicts so that they flounder later is the same as not teaching them anything at all.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

I’m unclear on how personhood and humanity are different. I think that you are a person simply by virtue of the fact that you’re human. How does one say “this one is a person, that one isn’t?” I think that this might be the question at the heart of yours.

This might be an extreme illustration of my thinking, but not ever fusion of a sperm and an egg results in the development of an “anthropomorphized” being. There have been cases where the end result is more similar to a teratoma (and I’ve got no problem with not considering that to be a person). There have also been fetuses with anencephaly; they have no brain though they may have enough of a brain stem to keep a heart beating and allow for breathing. If some one were preparing to abort a “fetus” that had either of these conditions I couldn’t see myself raising any argument against it.

Now I can’t say that I can articulate where a hard line can be drawn or a present a fully defined heuristic (will be happy if I never need to do so).

 

[tonyrey]

The catechism doesn’t teach anything to children. Not one thing, let alone the immorality of abortion. It’s part of a child’s ongoing education in Church teaching that brings catechism (and encyclicals) to them, through their schools and their especially their parents. It’s up to the parents and Catholic schools to teach children the contents of the Catechism (and encyclicals) – it’s in this way that they will come to know where to go when they’re old enough to read and understand it. But to leave children ignorant of real life situations and conflicts so that they flounder later is the same as not teaching them anything at all.

You stated:

At least Catholics have it spelled out for them in the Catechism,** which**, if you’ll notice, does not just leave it at that, but explains the teachings of the Church thoroughly in these matters.

Yet now you are saying:

The catechism doesn’t teach anything to children. Not one thing, let alone the immorality of abortion.

!

 

[da_nolo]

Hello all,

I’ve been trying to catch up on my pro-life arguments but there is one wall I can’t break through. I have encountered pro-choicers who say that the fetus is a human but not a person; thus abortion is justified.

So what are some philosophical arguments for the personhood of the fetus? Peter Kreeft makes some good points in his Apple Argument against abortion and another article he wrote strictly about fetal personhood. However, Kreeft stops his argument just short of being completely convince-able. One thing I’ve heard in my research is that all humans are persons but not all persons are humans, however this is hard to prove philosophically.

Back to my original question: how can fetal personhood be proven?

I think there is an issue on the idea of personhood. its a new(er) term that reflects recognition as a person, but still - it may be confusing.

personally I try to use reason. describe or ask the person(s) to describe just what or who is human. even ask for the definition. this way both sides of argument know what the term is and you may catch them in a loop or hiccup in their own lack of common sense.

if anyone does not know:
definitions.net/definition/person
dictionary.reference.com/browse/person?s=t
merriam-webster.com/dictionary/person

majority forms/definitions of the word is defensible or justifiable for use towards the unborn (whether fetus or embryo, few cells or one). under these terms the person must acknowledge that the unborn children are in deed humans in it self.

the term in philosophy, however, is harder to use. as a fetus we still don’t know total ability of the brain. it easily works and the human easily interacts or reacts which would require brain activity. still to argue that a human or person is defined simply by brain activity is incorrect for not all humans have the same mental capability. too many hide in this grey area to accept murder.

Knowing biology tends to help …but in reality an insane individual may never accept reality. since that is the definition of an insane person.

 

[vz71]

But today, those expectations are the reality. Currently, the patient who has the right to consent or refuse treatment has that choice, and currently, it’s the woman. To give it to someone else to override the woman would just cause a cascade of problems. The best way to prevent abortion is to change the heart and mind of the woman so that she chooses life, rather than trying to take women back in time to when they had no rights to direct their healthcare decisions.

So perhaps we should abolish laws against murder, rape, theft, vandalism…etc.
In favor of ‘change the heart and mind’ of those involved.

Am I the only one that sees a problem with this type of logic?

 

[Poseidon]

This might be an extreme illustration of my thinking, but not ever fusion of a sperm and an egg results in the development of an “anthropomorphized” being. There have been cases where the end result is more similar to a teratoma (and I’ve got no problem with not considering that to be a person). There have also been fetuses with anencephaly; they have no brain though they may have enough of a brain stem to keep a heart beating and allow for breathing. If some one were preparing to abort a “fetus” that had either of these conditions I couldn’t see myself raising any argument against it.

Now I can’t say that I can articulate where a hard line can be drawn or a present a fully defined heuristic (will be happy if I never need to do so).

My problem with the question of abortion is that I can’t define when life begins. Obviously it begins before birth, because in the later stages of pregnancy a baby is mature enough to survive outside the womb, and if we are to say that those unborn babies are not human while born (and less physically mature) babies are, well, that just doesn’t make sense. But to say that a baby doesn’t attain human status until it can survive outside the womb also fails, because there’s no definite moment. If someone’s going to take that tactic then we have to accept that there is a gradient of “fetushood” and “personhood.” Since I can’t find any beginning to the personhood of the fetus/baby then I have to conclude that the beginning of the personhood coincides with the beginning of the organism - at conception.

I also agree with the point that while a fetus may not be able to think, feel pain, or whatever, it’s still a genetically unique organism that is simply immature. As Horton said, “a person’s a person no matter how small,” and I agree with him.

 

[Perplexity]

danserr:

By lamentable, I just mean the action will cause sadness, or regret (for some). There are many actions that do this but which aren’t considered to be morally forbidden. For example, sometimes we have to put an animal down. A horse may have broken its leg, a dog might be suffering some lung complications etc. While putting these animals down can be absolutely heart-breaking, we don’t think it’s morally forbidden to do so. In fact, we may think it’s the right thing to do.

As to your defense of premise 1, I think the problem I’m having here is you’re assuming there is something that persists from the moment of conception, through aaallll the changes up to birth and beyond. It’s that thing that you take to be the referent of the pronoun ‘I’. What is that thing? Could it be the matter that composes the embryo, and fetus etc.? No, because the particles that formed the embryo and fetus are probably entirely different from the particles that form the infant etc. Could it be the brain? No, because the brain only develops after conception. What is it then that persists through all these changes? I think you have to posit some kind of soul thing. As far as I can tell then, you’ll have to motivate substance dualism to for (1)'s sake. That effectively makes this argument extremely controversial, meaning it’s not a good argument, even if it turns out to be sound.

As far as my second objection, I only intended to challenge you to motivate the following claim:

F: Fetuses have rights.

Without this claim, you can’t say it’s wrong to prevent fetuses from attaining personhood. This is because to commit a wrong is to fail in some duty, to violate some moral obligation.

I don’t believe fetuses are persons because I think a thing must be able, in principle, to access some mental state in order to be a person, which fetuses cannot do. It’s the privileged access of mental states, especially as defended by Nagel in his celebrated What is it like to be a bat?, that I take as a condition of personhood.

 

[JaKael02]

My problem with the question of abortion is that I can’t define when life begins. Obviously it begins before birth, because in the later stages of pregnancy a baby is mature enough to survive outside the womb, and if we are to say that those unborn babies are not human while born (and less physically mature) babies are, well, that just doesn’t make sense. But to say that a baby doesn’t attain human status until it can survive outside the womb also fails, because there’s no definite moment. If someone’s going to take that tactic then we have to accept that there is a gradient of “fetushood” and “personhood.” Since I can’t find any beginning to the personhood of the fetus/baby then I have to conclude that the beginning of the personhood coincides with the beginning of the organism - at conception.

I also agree with the point that while a fetus may not be able to think, feel pain, or whatever, it’s still a genetically unique organism that is simply immature. As Horton said, “a person’s a person no matter how small,” and I agree with him.

You sound Pro-life? Are you not?

 

[JaKael02]

By that logic, those Christian churches who do not outright condemn and oppose the death penalty, think no one has a ‘‘right’’ to life.

Sarah x

Point well made. I agree with you regarding the Christians who outright support dealth penalty.

This is why Catholic Church condems death penalty unless you cannot protect that individual from harming society again. (Think of it as society’s self-defense, in which it’s not a “right” issue anymore)

What do you think?

 

[atheistgirl]

Point well made. I agree with you regarding the Christians who outright support dealth penalty.

This is why Catholic Church condems death penalty unless you cannot protect that individual from harming society again. (Think of it as society’s self-defense, in which it’s not a “right” issue anymore)

What do you think?

Let me put it this way:

Think of abortion as a woman’s self defence, she is defending her right to live in the rare medical cases where to go full term could endanger the woman’s life. So abortion is no longer a right’s issue, it’s a self defence issue.

It’s the same reasoning

But the Catholic church states with no exceptions what so ever the baby in the womb has a right to life and abortion in every single case with no exceptions what so ever, is wrong.

The Catholic church does not outright condemn the death penalty in the way it does abortion. It makes exceptions, where there are none for abortion. I think it smacks of the heights of hypocracy to me to on the one hand assert either everyone has the ‘‘right’’ to life, or no one has the ‘‘right’’ to life, and not declare anathama those that endorse or partake in the death penalty.

The prisoner has as much right to life as the fetus.

For clarification, I am opposed to the death penalty, and I am prolife.

Sarah x

 

[Poseidon]

Let me put it this way:

Think of abortion as a woman’s self defence, she is defending her right to live in the rare medical cases where to go full term could endanger the woman’s life. So abortion is no longer a right’s issue, it’s a self defence issue.

It’s the same reasoning

But the Catholic church states with no exceptions what so ever the baby in the womb has a right to life and abortion in every single case with no exceptions what so ever, is wrong.

The Catholic church does not outright condemn the death penalty in the way it does abortion. It makes exceptions, where there are none for abortion. I think it smacks of the heights of hypocracy to me to on the one hand assert either everyone has the ‘‘right’’ to life, or no one has the ‘‘right’’ to life, and not declare anathama those that endorse or partake in the death penalty.

The prisoner has as much right to life as the fetus.

For clarification, I am opposed to the death penalty, and I am prolife.

Sarah x

I’m not 100% sure, but I don’t think that the CC is totally opposed to abortion in the case of saving the mother. “Pro life” takes into account both lives, and it needs to be considered on a case by case basis. That’s my understanding at least, as a former Catholic.

 

[Poseidon]

You sound Pro-life? Are you not?

Yes, I am pro-life.

 

[lmelahn]

Let me put it this way:

Think of abortion as a woman’s self defence, she is defending her right to live in the rare medical cases where to go full term could endanger the woman’s life. So abortion is no longer a right’s issue, it’s a self defence issue.

It’s the same reasoning

But the Catholic church states with no exceptions what so ever the baby in the womb has a right to life and abortion in every single case with no exceptions what so ever, is wrong.

The Catholic church does not outright condemn the death penalty in the way it does abortion. It makes exceptions, where there are none for abortion. I think it smacks of the heights of hypocracy to me to on the one hand assert either everyone has the ‘‘right’’ to life, or no one has the ‘‘right’’ to life, and not declare anathama those that endorse or partake in the death penalty.

For clarification, I am opposed to the death penalty, and I am prolife.

Sarah x

There is one important difference between abortion and self-defense: in abortion, the death of the fetus (which I think philosophically can be shown to have all the same rights as an adult) is directly intended. In self-defense, no: what is intended is to stop the imminent harm caused by the aggressor.

Now, to be clear, procedures done to save the mother’s life which result in the embryo or fetus’ death are sometimes OK, provided the death is not intended in any way. (This is an application of the so called principle of “double-effect”–I am sure that there are other messages in these forums that deal with this principle directly.) The important thing is to treat both mother and child with the same dignity.

Thus, I don’t see how abortion can be justified on account that the fetus is an “aggressor”: it is not causing any grave harm to the mother: it causes some discomfort that is a normal part of pregnancy; or else financial or emotional distress, but I don’t see how that could justify the death of the fetus.

 

[atheistgirl]

I’m not 100% sure, but I don’t think that the CC is totally opposed to abortion in the case of saving the mother.

Ah, ok. The Catholics I’ve spoken with have all said there are no exceptions to ever carrying out an abortion, even if the action is to save the life of the mother. They might have been mistaken in that case.

Sarah x

 

[achmafooma]

Let me put it this way:

Think of abortion as a woman’s self defence, she is defending her right to live in the rare medical cases where to go full term could endanger the woman’s life. So abortion is no longer a right’s issue, it’s a self defence issue.

It’s the same reasoning

But the Catholic church states with no exceptions what so ever the baby in the womb has a right to life and abortion in every single case with no exceptions what so ever, is wrong.

The Catholic church does not outright condemn the death penalty in the way it does abortion. It makes exceptions, where there are none for abortion. I think it smacks of the heights of hypocracy to me to on the one hand assert either everyone has the ‘‘right’’ to life, or no one has the ‘‘right’’ to life, and not declare anathama those that endorse or partake in the death penalty.

The prisoner has as much right to life as the fetus.

For clarification, I am opposed to the death penalty, and I am prolife.

Sarah x

You make very good points, but overlook one important difference. You see, murder is the intended taking of an innocent life.

The child in the womb is innocent; he or she has committed no sins, made no attack, committed no wrong. Even when the child is the result of rape, as heartbreaking as those cases are, the child is not the rapist, and should not be punished for the crime of another.

In cases where the mother’s life is at risk, we may take whatever necessary action to save her life…even if it has the unintended consequence of killing the child. This is a sad, sad necessity, not an *intentional *attack on an innocent.

In cases of self defense, your intent is to stop the attack, not to kill…but even if your intent was to kill, it is still not the killing of an innocent. This is the key difference. We can come up with a somewhat artificial argument that a woman aborting her child is defending herself against the risks of carrying a pregnancy to term, but that doesn’t change the fact that she is intentionally attacking an innocent person.

To use a similarly convoluted analogy…if somebody is trying to run you over with their car, and you shoot them to protect yourself, you have acted in self defense – you have shot an aggressor. Now, imagine that somebody’s car is slipping on ice and they are sliding toward you. Although the situation is essentially the same (a car coming right at you, threatening your life) there is no aggressor. You cannot pull out a gun and shoot the driver, because the driver has committed no aggressive act against you.

Insofar as the death penalty, again the reason the Church’s condemnation is much weaker than its condemnation of abortion is because they are objectively different things. Abortion is the intentional killing of an innocent. Capital punishment is the intentional killing of somebody duly convicted of a violent crime (NOT an innocent, assuming the legal system has worked the way it is supposed to).

Like you, I oppose both…but capital punishment (applied properly) is a much lesser moral transgression that the killing of an innocent child. The criminal signs away some of their rights when they commit a crime; otherwise, we couldn’t have prisons. After all, imprisoning the innocent would be considered a terrible transgression, but we have no qualms about imprisoning the guilty. In the U.S. we’ve decided, for better or worse, that the right to life is one of those rights people sign away when they commit the crime of murder, at least when certain conditions are met. But, no matter how distasteful you and I find it, the person has still done something to sign that right away. What has a child in the womb done to sign away any of his or her rights?

God bless good discussion!