What is a person?

When we discuss abortion, we use terms like "a human being" and "a human life" and "person-hood" to refer to the "person" who may (or may not) exist in the womb but certainly exists at birth. I call your attention to this article by David L. Anderson addressing the question "What is a person?" :
http://www.mind.ilstu.edu/curriculum/what_is_a_person/what_is_a_person.php

He goes on to say:

My current position is that a person is represented primarily (if not entirely) by the active mind, and the physical body is no more than a life-support system which forms a temporary physical residence for the mind (which some may prefer to call the spirit or the soul). We should not judge a person based on their size, or the color of their skin (although those physical attributes may influence the way they think, or the way we think about them). Most people I know judge the quality of a person (good versus evil) based on his or her mind.

Is the physical body equivalent to the mind, to person-hood, or to a human life? I say NO because:
- If the body does not match the template (e.g. missing limbs) but the mind is activated at birth, we still agree this is a person.
- If the DNA does not match the template (e.g. different chromosome count) but the mind is activated at birth, we agree this is a person.
- There is no report of any transplant patient who adopted the person-hood of the donor. We agree that Joe is still Joe after he gets a heart transplant from Sally.
- Experience with brain trauma suggests that a fully developed cerebral cortex is the only physical structure capable of containing an active mind. There is no evidence to suggest that the mind (or person-hood) would remain in the old body if the cerebral cortex could be transplanted into a different body.

This all points to a conclusion that, although life (as in microorganisms and mice) of an individual body might begin at conception, a human life (as in person-hood) begins when the mind is activated. That can only happen when (1) the cerebral cortex provides an environment that can sustain an active mind, and (2) the cerebral cortex is "awakened," typically by the process of birth. It also points to the (less controversial) conclusion that a human life (as in person-hood) ends with the activated mind is gone (even if the life of the body continues and must be intentionally terminated).

What is your definition of person-hood?

 

IMO a person is someone that is not dependent upon the mother's umbilical chord for pure survival. I also think they are a person when they are born. Just my opinion. Feel free to fire shots back at me

 

While I'm not sure I would draw the line exactly there, I would say personhood requires a working central nervous system. It doesn't need to be fully developed, but it should perform functions. Just my stance.

 

I agree that it is hard to consider an organism to be an independent person when it is embedded inside another organism and operating more like a parasite. Throughout history birth has been the line of demarcation (with occasional attempts to regulate the treatment of the fetus and occasional attempts to "cull out" weak newborns in some societies).

 

I personally have difficulty with those last four weeks or so before birth. I have been able to find no scientific evidence to indicate when global neuronal integration might be complete. That might, in theory, allow the mind to begin incorporating experience into memory. However, if a fetus is actually awakened inside the womb, I think its metabolism would increase and it would suffocate (unless the woman happened to be in a hospital where they could detect the fetal distress and induce labor or perform a cesarean section).

I would vote against abortion restrictions in that last month because I find it hard to imagine the scenario that a woman would go through 8 months of pregnancy and then request an abortion without a good reason. On the other hand, Ireland has already proven that they are willing the throw a pregnant woman under the bus (figuratively speaking) when the law allows them to ignore the signs that an abortion is necessary. The decision should not be in the hands of a pro-life, or a pro-choice, advocate. It should be in the hands of the one person we absolutely know is directly involved, and that is the pregnant woman.

 

I'm not fully aware of all the ins and outs of the debate, and I'm sure plenty of people will present ideas which may not be any of the main options, but to the best of my knowledge, not many people want to push the no-reason abortion to the last four weeks. Even my home country of Sweden, which is pretty liberal on these kinds of issues sets the limit at week 18 (or 22 in the case of certain dangers).

As far as I understand it, when pro choice and pro life dish it out, the issue lies on week 0 (even in some cases before conception). Any distinction made and any debate concerning week 18, 22, 4, 36 or whatever falls fully under the title of pro-choice (and if we could get over the week 0 issue, I'm sure we'd have a similar debate over the exact weeks).

From a biological point of view, the processes I've talked about are in order by the 24th week, making 18 and 22 seem ok to me (give it a bit of space for fluctuation).

While there is a good point in your idea that the decision shouldn't be in the hands of various politics, I think it has to be. A lot of the issue is where it overlaps with murder, and certainly we don't let a murderer be the sole arbiter of whether their murder was right. Another way of looking at it is that we also know that the foetus is directly involved, so by your logic, the decision should take that into account too. All in all, I think we need a bit more nuance. Given the arguments above, I don't think we need to shy away from tackling the issues properly.

 

Yes... The last time I checked, polls indicated there were about 16% who believed abortion should be illegal in every case (starting at conception). The same polls indicated about 29% who believed abortion should be legal in every case.
Reference: http://www.pollingreport.com/abortion.htm
Most (53%) thought there should be a legal restriction at some point... and that is where person-hood may be the issue.

If we draw the line too early (e.g. at conception) we impose an unnecessary burden on the pregnant woman (and her family) just to satisfy the religious beliefs of people who have no legitimate interest in that pregnancy.

If we draw the line too late (e.g. when the baby can say its first word) we fail to protect an actual person.

I am not convinced the fetus can be a person when the primitive brain stem is operational because those are purely mechanical functions designed to keep the heart (and later the lungs) functioning and to handle reflex responses (kind of like the toy cars that run along the floor and switch to reverse when the bumper hits the wall). Terri Schaivo (and others) have been observed to still have primitive brain stem function (so much so that visitors were often convinced that she saw them and responded to them) but she had no cerebral brain function. There was no evidence that her body was still inhabited by the person who had been Terri Schaivo. That suggests to me that an operational brain stem does not make it possible for a fetus to begin accumulating experience to help form the person (in a metaphysical sense).

I was just thinking... One reason I resist the 20-24 week restrictions in the United States is that some women do not realize they are pregnant until they have missed a second period. In the US there are many attempts to interfere with her efforts to get an abortion (even before the official deadline). In Sweden, is there any political effort to close clinics or require counseling or waiting periods for women seeking an abortion?

 

The Pope say a single cell is a person.

 

Yes, he does. I respectfully disagree.

 

That's most likely true, and I would think that if the public debate was about the exact week instead of all-or-nothing, we might see more nuanced answers from those 29%. Of course, I could be wrong, either way, the 53% are enough.

I certainly agree. I don't want to argue that 24 weeks is the actual limit, I'm just saying until then, we can be pretty sure it's not a problem. After that, I wouldn't even know where to start the discussion, so until further information arrives, I'm happy to be on the safe side.

Not that I know of, but then, I've never had an abortion, and I don't know that anyone I know has (maybe I should specify, I am male). There is a decent effort to make these kinds of things available, so to the best of my knowledge, we have created a culture where nobody really would wait two periods before getting a pregnancy test. They're not throw-away cheap, but they're not "eh, I'll wait a month and see if it sorts itself out" expensive.

 

I think in Texas it is 20 weeks. Late term abortion are very rare. The lunatic fringe that thinks a single cell is a person know that the only way to make abortion illegal is through the courts. Can you believe that Roe v Wade was not overturned with five Catholics on the court!

 

If you are actually asking if I (each of us) consider a gamete, a zygote, a fetus to be a "person"...

...my answer would be "NO."

Like AS above...I consider a person "a person" only after delivery from the womb and cutting of the umbilical.

Until that time, a pregnancy occurring in the body of a woman...is, in my opinion, just that...a pregnancy. And if a woman decides that she no longer wants that pregnancy to continue...I think she has the right to terminate it.

I prefer that she have access to as safe an abortion procedure as possible.

Is that what you were asking?

 

My impression is that late term abortions are very rare because a woman who just does not want a baby is going to be motivated to get an abortion as soon as possible. I think we are fortunate that there are some in public service who recognize that it is possible to serve the public interest even if it conflicts with your personal religion.

 

Yes, that is what I am asking, but I am also looking for reasons why we might select one point or another. For example, some people want to base that line on the function heart, but I would argue that the heart does not alter person-hood one way or the other. If it did, transplanting Sally's heart into Joe would turn Joe into Sally (residing in the body that formerly belonged to Joe).

 

Okay...I thought that was what you were asking.

And I answered with my opinion...a person becomes a "person" when it has been delivered and the umbilical has been cut. Until then it can be a gamete, a zygote, a fetus...which we all were, BEFORE we became a person.

It is my opinion that a woman has a right to terminate a pregnancy occurring in her own body at any point that she wants. I would hope most women would not wait until late in the pregnancy to choose termination, but if they do for whatever reasons might come up, it is my opinion they should not be restricted from doing so.

 

So by your reckoning, it's not a person an hour before birth, even though it has been able to hear for several months by that time. Right?

 

Do you have a link to the details about a fetus being able to hear several months before birth?

What do you think defines the difference between a person and a non-person?

 

Good questions.. I consider my cats to be persons in the sense that they are intelligent creatures with unique personalities (within the confines of their feline nature, of course). Meanwhile, we humans are persons within the confines of our human nature.

I'll also point out that we have a terrible double standard where human life vs other life is concerned..

 

Agreed... dogs and cats do seem to be capable of love (or some very similar bond). I would be more inclined to think of elephants as people because they have such good memories, and reports are that they mourn (and even try to bury) their dead. Gorillas (like Koko) might be considered persons because she was able to learn more sign language than I ever did, and was able to communicate better than some homo sapiens.

So far, I keep finding attributes of the mind that represent person-hood (more than attributes of the body).

 

Why is the moment of birth so special?

Before birth, the fetus is utterly dependent on the mother. After birth, the baby is utterly dependent on... someone.

In other words, the baby's situation has changed very little. It is the situation of the adults around the infant that has changed. Why does the changed situation of the adults mean that the infant that was not a person a few hours earlier is now a person?

When does a baby kangaroo become a kangaroo-person? At birth, or when it leaves Mom's pouch?

IMHO, it is a fallacy to try to find "personhood" in physical gestation.

 

By these standards, I'd say pretty much any mammal that isn't of the jittery prey variety could probably qualify for personhood. Let us bear in mind that we are deciding what constitutes a person from a very biased point of view, universally speaking! Personhood is like so many abstract concepts we have - it is very undefined, thus it can be quite difficult to apply to real-world examples and hard to reach a consensus about. All we're really going to end up doing here is trying to figure out what really constitutes personhood. We might also try to figure out what it means for the life we decide get to be persons and the remaining life on our little planet.

As to the abortion issue and the justifications used for or against the practice, I don't think arguing whether an unborn baby is a 'person' works when the concept of person is, as we can agree, so abstract and hard to define and apply in the first place. On the other hand, the law needs something to work with. Can't have a law against killing or harming a fellow human, or other animals, without having some basic working definition in place to make it possible to define the crime in the first place. Oy vey, now we're getting into the nitty-gritty of jurisprudence. First step here is to understand what the laws say already about life, human rights and how persons protected by law are actually defined. Evidently the law does not protect the unborn in every instance, yet will do so in others (such as the killing, intentional or not, of a baby in the womb in an act that is not a legally sanctioned abortion). I don't know why it's that way, and I'm not prepared to say whether this apparent double standard is as it appears and needs changing. Nor do I hold a strong opinion about whether abortion is right or wrong, mainly because I try to be pragmatic. I find that an early-term abortion is a less disturbing idea to me because a child in a state of development near to that of an infant does not yet exist; instead a much simpler state of human life is being killed, which is not too far from any given form of birth control, which invariably either prevents conception or kills a fertilised egg that could go on to become a functioning human. People can say "women should be more careful" and all that, but in the end, unwanted pregnancies are still going to occur in some number, and there has to be a reasonable extent to which a woman has control over her own biology in this regard. It wouldn't make sense to allow a late-term abortion for non-critical reasons, in my view, because the woman has already opted to endure the pregnancy and practically carry the baby to term, and by then it's probably at or near a point where it could be born and subsequently raised by someone. It makes more sense to me for a woman to opt for a very early termination, especially as soon as possible after discovering the pregnancy, unless again we're talking about a medical emergency that necessitates termination.

 

The ONLY reason people try to muddy the waters over what is a person is to attempt to deny women the right to an abortion.

A fetus becomes a person upon BIRTH, when it no longer is attached and dependent on the woman.

People who drool, "women should be more careful" are sexist, history ignorant, idiots.

Women are under NO obligation to use birth control, NONE, ZERO....


Normal, mentally sound women do NOT "enjoy" 8 1/2-9 months of pregnancy for the "thrill" of having a late abortion....it does NOT happen so any "warnings" about how women will do that all the time if they're allowed are just Really Stupid.

 

Once the baby is born it is NOT physically attached or biologically dependent on another person...didn't you know that?

After birth, when it became a person, a baby can be cared for by anyone without physical attachment.

There is social dependency(anyone can care for it ) and biological/physical dependency (inside the womb)

The fetus's situation changes quite a bit with birth...did you think it's just sitting inside the woman and then after 9 months it slides out??? I think you should read up on what happens during childbirth...

 

Are you interested in conversation? Then cease the snark.

A newborn will die within hours without care. It is as dependent as it was before birth. The big change is in the caretaker, not the fetus/baby.

 

In order to know what it is we value about persons (as opposed to non-persons) we need to understand what we mean by person-hood. Is it how many fingers you have, or whether you have lungs or gills, or is it your mind (or soul, or spirit, depending on your philosophy)?

I don't know much about kangaroos, but I would suggest that if a kangaroo operates entirely by pre-programmed instinct it could probably never be a person. If they did demonstrate intelligence, then I would say an individual kangaroo life (as in person-hood) begins when its mind is activated and capable of incorporating experience (not just reacting to it blindly by instinct). From that point on, its experience begins to mold the "person" that it is and will be.

The moment of birth is special because that is the moment when the blood chemistry changes (eliminating the sedatives that have been keeping the fetus asleep) and oxygen level increases (because the lungs provide oxygen directly from the air). I would say that is when the kangaroo begins its life (person-hood)... and that is probably some time before it leaves the pouch.