Personhood of the fetus

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achmafooma said:
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?
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I completely agree. The child in the womb is innocent and has signed away nothing.

But my comments were addressing the statement made that ‘‘either everyone has the right to life, or no one has’’.

I believe everyone has the ‘‘right’’ to live, hence I am pro life and anti death penalty.

Christians believe life is a gift from God.

How can some one sign away something they don’t own - God own’s their life?

And how can a society take away this life, which is not theirs to take?

I think Christians, and Churches, who support the death penalty while vilifying abortion, are being hypocritical. After all, either everyone has the right to life, or no one has.

If Christians agrue your life is not yours, it’s a gift from God, and only God has the right to take your life, hence why suicide is a sin and the opposition to ethanesia, how can Christians sign away that prisoner’s life by giving secular authorities the ‘‘right’’ to take it?

It seems very contradictory to me.

Sarah x 🙂
 
atheistgirl said:
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 🙂
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OK, name an instance.
When exactly is the life of the mother threatened and the only treatment is the deliberate murder of the unborn?
 
vz71 said:
OK, name an instance.
When exactly is the life of the mother threatened and the only treatment is the deliberate murder of the unborn?
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Some ectopic pregnancies. Though I don’t think the word “murder” would be appropriate in these cases.
wiki:
An ectopic pregnancy, or eccysis, is a complication of pregnancy in which the embryo implants outside the uterine cavity.With rare exceptions, ectopic pregnancies are not viable. Furthermore, they are dangerous for the mother, since internal haemorrhage is a life-threatening complication. Most ectopic pregnancies occur in the Fallopian tube (so-called tubal pregnancies), but implantation can also occur in the cervix, ovaries, and abdomen. An ectopic pregnancy is a potential medical emergency, and, if not treated properly, can lead to death.
Treatment
Medical
Early treatment of an ectopic pregnancy with methotrexate is a viable alternative to surgical treatment[22] since at least 1993.[23] If administered early in the pregnancy, methotrexate terminates the growth of the developing embryo; this may cause an abortion, or the tissue may then be either resorbed by the woman’s body or pass with a menstrual period. Contraindications include liver, kidney, or blood disease, as well as an ectopic mass > 3.5 cm.
Surgical
If hemorrhage has already occurred, surgical intervention may be necessary. However, whether to pursue surgical intervention is an often difficult decision in a stable patient with minimal evidence of blood clot on ultrasound.[citation needed]
Surgeons use laparoscopy or laparotomy to gain access to the pelvis and can either incise the affected Fallopian and remove only the pregnancy (salpingostomy) or remove the affected tube with the pregnancy (salpingectomy). The first successful surgery for an ectopic pregnancy was performed by Robert Lawson Tait in 1883.[24]
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vz71 said:
OK, and what exactly is the treatment for this condition?
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I amended my earlier response to contain a description of the treatment options available.

On my objection to the use of the term “Murder” in this scenario:

Murder already contains implications of being wrong which is in disagreement in how I see this scenario. Murder as used in common law is the unlawful killing with malice aforethought without sufficient provocation and where one’s mental state meets certain criteria. There are instances of killing that don’t meed all the criteria for murder; such as if some one breaks into a house and presents himself as a threat and another kills the intruder in defense (which in some cases may be considered man slaughter, which is a lesser charge). Even if we grant a fetus person hood status one of the vital elements missing is the malice. Remember that the scenario is one in which there will be two deaths or one death.

While I’m not a legal professional I’ve had conversations on this topic with a friend of mine that is while she was still in law school She also had an etopic pregnancy. She went in to the Dr. stating that she just some how didn’t feel right. They did an ultrasound and saw indications of an etopic pregnancy including her ovary being obscured by something and signs of free flowing fluid. She was informed that for the sake of her own life it was necessary to address the problem now or else she would hemmorrage to death. She was also told that regardless of her insurance condition (she had no health insurance at the time) that immediate action was necessary if she wanted to preserve her life. She accepted treatment and they gave her a shot of something to terminate the pregnancy.

I’m not knowledgable on the catholic position on this scenario. In doing a search I found what appeared to be mixed results. But I did take a look on wiki to see what had been said about it. Perhaps some one can validate or invalidate this?

On Catholic Church: Ectopic Pregnancy
wiki:
…]Using the Thomistic Principle of Totality (removal of a pathological part to preserve the life of the person) and the Doctrine of Double Effect, the only moral action in an ectopic pregnancy where a woman’s life is directly threatened is the removal of the tube containing the human embryo (salpingectomy). The death of the human embryo is unintended although foreseen.[40]
In Catholic theology, it is never permissible to evacuate the fetus using methotrexate or to incise the Fallopian tube to extract the fetus (salpingostomy), as these procedures are considered to be direct abortions.[41]
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[40] - THE MORAL MANAGEMENT OF ECTOPIC PREGNANCIES
 
atheistgirl said:
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 🙂
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Sarah,

I would respond but it appears others have stepped in with adequate responses. Achmafooma had a great response. You should respond to his comment if you got time!

To add my extension:

Church sides with saving as many lives as possible. I’ll explain:

Catholic Church does allow abortion in an effort to save the Mothers “Life”, if the Mothers life is in danger and the child CANNOT survive outside of the womb (too early into pregnancy). This is because the child cannot survive outside the womb and will die regardless and it’s better to save 1 life rather than zero lives. Later in stages of pregnancy, usually the child can survive outside womb and abortion is not allowed or necessary.

Note. Mothers LIFE and Mothers HEALTH are separate issues.

Do you agree with this teaching?

Always fun discussing Sarah! Kindly - James
 
coolduude said:
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?
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Who’s going to assign personhood, and, more importantly, *at what point in time *are they going to assign it? If human life is sacred at all, or at least worthy of being protected from that which would harm or destroy it in any case, then precisely at what point do we say, ‘now it’s not a person, and now it is?’ And if that can’t be done non-arbitrarily then ethically we must assume personhood from conception.
 
ThinkingSapien said:
I’m not knowledgable on the catholic position on this scenario.
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A thought occurs to me, if the soul is created/infused at the exact moment of conception, establishing the personhood of the zygote, what is the Christian procedure when tube containing the embryo is removed? We’re talking about a human being here from the Churches point of view, aren’t we? Is there a Christian funeral/burial?

Sarah x 🙂
 
vz71 said:
Then would it be fair to say that the treatment is not abortion?

That in fact, it is not an abortion?
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It seems to match the definitions I have handy.
  • -Induced termination of a pregnancy with destruction of the embryo or fetus.
  • -spontaneous expulsion of a human fetus during the first 12 weeks of gestation
  • -Any of various procedures resulting in the termination of a pregnancy. Also called induced abortion.
    • the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability
  • -arrest of development resulting in imperfection
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Natural miscarriages even show up as being classified as “spontaneous abortions.”

I speculate what you are getting at is can ectopic pregnancies result in new independent lives being formed? There are some cases when it can. In many it can’t. Many scenarios in which they can’t can be identified ahead of time.
 
fhansen said:
Who’s going to assign personhood, and, more importantly, *at what point in time *are they going to assign it? If human life is sacred at all, or at least worthy of being protected from that which would harm or destroy it in any case, then precisely at what point do we say, ‘now it’s not a person, and now it is?’ And if that can’t be done non-arbitrarily then ethically we must assume personhood from conception.
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Inexorable logic!
 
Perplexity said:
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.
.
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Ok. I don’t want to get too much into this since it’s not my main point, but I can’t help observing one thing. In the examples you cited (putting down a horse or dog), there is generally a presumption against doing this without a very good reason. In both you examples, you give such reasons. The simple fact that I own the horse or dog does not give me the moral right to put it down. In fact, I expect we would say that I have an obligation to protect the animal’s well-being and that putting it down may only be done for a compelling reason (the animal is suffering and will not heal).

Now, if you are comparing the case of the fetus to this, it seems you would have to agree that one does not have the ability to abort on demand, but only for a compelling reason. So, even if you are granting less than I would like, your examples still seem to imply that there is a strong presumption against aborting a fetus except for a compelling reason.
As far as my second objection, I only intended to challenge you to motivate the following claim:
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F: Fetuses have rights.
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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.
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  1. Understood. I would simply say that I have given such a reason in my plausible claim that human dignity is an essential feature of myself. If we can show then that I was once a fetus, then it follows that the fetus that I was also had human dignity and can be wronged.
  2. Second, the same would follow if personhood is an essential feature of me. If I was once a fetus, then since I am a person, the the fetus that I was, was also a person.
So, obviously for the argument, I am making here, a lot depends on the claim that I was once a fetus. My argument was:
  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.
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  1. Add a basic metaphysical principle: If an organism that once existed has never died, then this organism still exists.
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  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.
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  1. 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.
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  1. So, it makes the most sense to say that I was once a fetus.
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This strikes me as a plausible argument and you haven’t actually pointed to an error anywhere in the argument. You have only questioned whether it has an implausible consequence, substance dualism.

You objected:
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.
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Yes, I agree that I am arguing that something persists from the moment of conception, namely myself!

So what move can you make? You can either claim that the being that was the fetus still exists and is not I. Or you could claim that the being that was the fetus no longer exists. I read you as claiming that the being that was the fetus no longer exists and will respond under that assumption.
  1. If the being that was the fetus (F) no longer exists, what happened to it? When did it cease to exist. Every major organic part of F is still in organic existence (though transformed and developed). Every part of F has developed into me. All of me has developed from F. And by the basic metaphysical principle we are using, if a being has once existed and has never ceased to exist, it exists today. This seems to be the case with the being that was the fetus.
Now you are concerned that the view that I was once a fetus would commit you to substance dualism. You think this because of questions of personal identity. So my response follows:
  1. At most this would force you to choose between which is more warranted, the claim that I was once a fetus or the claim that souls do not exist. Given the strength of the argument that I was once a fetus, one might easily make that choice.
  2. But would it require even this? The problem with your objection is that it could work just as well against the claim that I am the same being I was 10 years ago, as the claim that I am the same being I was as a fetus.
For instance, you complain that there is no material continuity between myself and the fetus I was.

a). First, you are almost certainly wrong in you claim that there is no material continuity between the fetus and the infant. Is it really the case that an infant shortly after birth has no meaningful material continuity with the fetus it was shortly before birth? That seems highly implausible.

b). Even worse, this argument would work just as well in arguing that I am a wholly different person than I was 10 years ago. Human beings swap out all the particles in their bodies approximately every 7 years. Hence, there is no material continuity between me and the being called danserr 10 years ago. If your argument succeeds, then, I am a totally different being than I was 10 years ago. I cannot on pain of irrationality refer to myself has having graduated grade school.
  • The brain does not help you any here, because on materialism, the brain itself is wholly made of matter. It too swapped out all its particles.
In short, it seems that if I accept your argument against the claim that I was once a fetus, I will also be forced to accept the absurd claim that I was never once a child.

I think, then, that you are forced to do one of two things:
  1. withdraw your argument against the claim that I was once a fetus
    or
  2. admit the existence of a soul.
Now, I actually agree with some of your points about the metaphysics of personal identity. I haven’t fully decided but actually suspect that you have given a good argument for the existence of the soul (might be fun to try out on another thread). Since, I swap out all the particles in my body every 10 years, and still remain me, the existence of a soul does strike me as a good way of explaining the continuity of personal identity over time.
 
“Person” vs. “Fetus” is obviously a red herring, the real argument is obviously “life” vs. “death”. Who can argue that abortion is a good choice? The “choice” occurs before conception and this is the basis of human justice. It is a matter of basic human responsibility.

For those who believe in civil rights and liberties I would start first with ensuring the Right To Live, and move on then to other issues that require attention.

The world’s sense of justice is corrupted because of the laws allowing abortion in the U.S. and I find myself sickened every morning considering holocaust of millions who are killed every year this way.
 
danserr said:
Ok. I don’t want to get too much into this since it’s not my main point, but I can’t help observing one thing. In the examples you cited (putting down a horse or dog), there is generally a presumption against doing this without a very good reason. In both you examples, you give such reasons. The simple fact that I own the horse or dog does not give me the moral right to put it down. In fact, I expect we would say that I have an obligation to protect the animal’s well-being and that putting it down may only be done for a compelling reason (the animal is suffering and will not heal).

Now, if you are comparing the case of the fetus to this, it seems you would have to agree that one does not have the ability to abort on demand, but only for a compelling reason. So, even if you are granting less than I would like, your examples still seem to imply that there is a strong presumption against aborting a fetus except for a compelling reason.
  1. Understood. I would simply say that I have given such a reason in my plausible claim that human dignity is an essential feature of myself. If we can show then that I was once a fetus, then it follows that the fetus that I was also had human dignity and can be wronged.
  2. Second, the same would follow if personhood is an essential feature of me. If I was once a fetus, then since I am a person, the the fetus that I was, was also a person.
So, obviously for the argument, I am making here, a lot depends on the claim that I was once a fetus. My argument was:

This strikes me as a plausible argument and you haven’t actually pointed to an error anywhere in the argument. You have only questioned whether it has an implausible consequence, substance dualism.

You objected:

Yes, I agree that I am arguing that something persists from the moment of conception, namely myself!

So what move can you make? You can either claim that the being that was the fetus still exists and is not I. Or you could claim that the being that was the fetus no longer exists. I read you as claiming that the being that was the fetus no longer exists and will respond under that assumption.
  1. If the being that was the fetus (F) no longer exists, what happened to it? When did it cease to exist. Every major organic part of F is still in organic existence (though transformed and developed). Every part of F has developed into me. All of me has developed from F. And by the basic metaphysical principle we are using, if a being has once existed and has never ceased to exist, it exists today. This seems to be the case with the being that was the fetus.
Now you are concerned that the view that I was once a fetus would commit you to substance dualism. You think this because of questions of personal identity. So my response follows:
  1. At most this would force you to choose between which is more warranted, the claim that I was once a fetus or the claim that souls do not exist. Given the strength of the argument that I was once a fetus, one might easily make that choice.
  2. But would it require even this? The problem with your objection is that it could work just as well against the claim that I am the same being I was 10 years ago, as the claim that I am the same being I was as a fetus.
For instance, you complain that there is no material continuity between myself and the fetus I was.

a). First, you are almost certainly wrong in you claim that there is no material continuity between the fetus and the infant. Is it really the case that an infant shortly after birth has no meaningful material continuity with the fetus it was shortly before birth? That seems highly implausible.

b). Even worse, this argument would work just as well in arguing that I am a wholly different person than I was 10 years ago. Human beings swap out all the particles in their bodies approximately every 7 years. Hence, there is no material continuity between me and the being called danserr 10 years ago. If your argument succeeds, then, I am a totally different being than I was 10 years ago. I cannot on pain of irrationality refer to myself has having graduated grade school.
  • The brain does not help you any here, because on materialism, the brain itself is wholly made of matter. It too swapped out all its particles.
In short, it seems that if I accept your argument against the claim that I was once a fetus, I will also be forced to accept the absurd claim that I was never once a child.

I think, then, that you are forced to do one of two things:
  1. withdraw your argument against the claim that I was once a fetus
    or
  2. admit the existence of a soul.
Now, I actually agree with some of your points about the metaphysics of personal identity. I haven’t fully decided but actually suspect that you have given a good argument for the existence of the soul (might be fun to try out on another thread). Since, I swap out all the particles in my body every 10 years, and still remain me, the existence of a soul does strike me as a good way of explaining the continuity of personal identity over time.
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👍
This is an impregnable defence of defenceless persons!
 
coolduude said:
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?
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I’ve never understood what “person” is supposed to mean if it means anything besides “a human being.”

The relevant distinction here has nothing to do with personhood. The fetus is a human being, which makes it an object of the moral prohibition on murder.

The typical response here is that the fetus is human but not a human, in the way that my arm is human but not a human (i.e., it is “of” a person, but not a person in itself). But this is simply obviously false. A fetus is a substantial unity unto itself, independent of the mother. My arm is not, because it is part of my substantial unity. Again, this is simply, obviously, self-evidently true. People get abortions because they don’t want children (i.e., a substantive unity for which they’d have to care for and raise); they don’t treat it like cosmetic surgery.
 
This is about the life or death of a human being.

I’m having difficulty because of the following. A woman chooses to have sex and gets pregnant, which means what? She’s going to have a baby.

An abortion is entirely elective in most cases. It is not a healthcare issue in most cases.

Where is the man? He contributed his DNA to a new person. Why is he off the hook?

Brain function and brain death? Funny. There is a baby in the womb and it is a unique human being.

epm.org/resources/2010/Mar/8/scientists-attest-life-beginning-conception/

Medical procedures have been performed on babies while still in the womb.

healthzone.ca/health/newsfeatures/article/631176–city-doctors-operate-on-fetus-inside-womb

Peace,
Ed
 
sw85 said:
I’ve never understood what “person” is supposed to mean if it means anything besides “a human being.”
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It is used to establish civil and legal rights of an individual. It is intended to frame the rights of a human being in terms of political and/or philosophical debate. Historical examples include disputes over slavery and women’s rights. Even if an individual is technically a human being, not being defined as a “person” permits the deprivation of rights.
 
Soldier_Of_God said:
It is used to establish civil and legal rights of an individual. It is intended to frame the rights of a human being in terms of political and/or philosophical debate. Historical examples include disputes over slavery and women’s rights. Even if an individual is technically a human being, not being defined as a “person” permits the deprivation of rights.
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OK, so it’s an arbitrary legal construct. Like any other arbitrary legal construct, it can therefore be relabeled. So the pro-abortion argument, “But a fetus isn’t a person!” is doubly bad. It has no bearing on the moral argument and isn’t even an impediment to the political one.
 
edwest2 said:
This is about the life or death of a human being.

I’m having difficulty because of the following. A woman chooses to have sex and gets pregnant, which means what? She’s going to have a baby.

An abortion is entirely elective in most cases. It is not a healthcare issue in most cases.

Where is the man? He contributed his DNA to a new person. Why is he off the hook?
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Very often in our progressive society he has been been pushed off and told to push off whether he likes it or not - as a prelude to pushing off the undesired outcome of their encounter…
 
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