The Personhood Debate
On Abortion
One of the key issues in the abortion debate is the matter of personhood and how to distinguish between a human and a person. A "human" is more to do with biological classification and what makes Homo sapiens distinct from other things/creatures. A "person" has moral and legal consideration (such as the right against inviability) and cannot be harmed without good reason. However, what qualifies as a person is up for debate. “Human” is a scientific term, while “person” is a philosophical term. A fetus is certainly alive, it is certainly human, but is it a person? Discussion on this matter is long, complex, and continuing – naturally, many aspects will not be addressed here.
Understandably, many people define and use the terms “person” as “human" synonymously. That which is human is a who. This however poses a problem. Surely my hair, blood, limbs, etc are not considered persons apart from myself. A bag of blood is human, but it is not a person. The definition must be more specific than this. A way to expand the definition might be to say that a person is the primary sum of a distinct human being. This, of course, goes for twins – who, despite being biologically identical, are distinguishable in the eyes of physics. But one might respond that this is also problematic. If I were to be cut in half, each half would not then be counted as separate persons, despite having a different location within space-time. It is important, therefore, to recognise the moral difference between parts and wholes.
Perhaps a simpler definition of personhood is as follows: “the primarily sum of that which begins as a human zygote.” This means that moral consideration is merited from the moment of conception. This definition even includes the dead – which is not so problematic when one considers the great amount of care usually taken when dealing with dead bodies. But if one were opposed to the dead being persons, all one would have to do is insert the conditional of “living” into their definition.
For those who believe in a transcendent soul, a person may be defined as a human soul. The question then becomes when a human attains such a soul, to which one might return to the previous section. In this case, the body is no longer relevant to personhood upon death, as the soul leaves the body.
Some abortion-supporters will instead hold that personhood is designated after fertilisation at some arbitrary point in time, e.g., implantation, particular stages of embryonic/fetal development, brainwaves, viability, birth, etc. However, as these stages constitute a process, rather than an absolute end/beginning point, attainment of personhood varies among subjects - this is not an issue for the previous criteria. The debate is a battle of "personhood with potential" verses "potential personhood."
Further still, there are some (such as Peter Singer) would claim that such definitions with the conditional “human” are speciesist, and that the definition of "person" should not automatically exclude animals/androids and should instead be concerned with capacity. For example, many will define personhood in terms of human consciousness, rationality, and/or self-awareness. A fetus is not conscious, nor can it reason, it certainly isn’t self-aware, and therefore it is not a person and killing it is permissible. But this is problematic. While sleeping, you are not conscious, rational, or self-aware – are you then no longer a person? It may be objected that the mere capacity for these is all that is necessary, whether or not they are utilising them at present. But what of the severely disabled? They have no capacity for reason, they may not even be self-aware. Similarly, a person in a coma has no such capacities.
One may argue that they may gain these abilities in the future, and so must be attributed personhood by virtue of that future capacity. But how then does this differ from a preborn child? Given all goes to plan, a zygote will progress into a conscious, rational, and self-aware being also – it is its nature. Just because circumstances (e.g., one’s age) limit one’s consciousness, rationality, and/or self-awareness, does not mean one is less of a person. Is it not more intuitive for personhood to be a matter of existence, as opposed to circumstance? Indeed, human rights are not given based upon circumstance or age.
I have also heard it said that having the level of consciousness required for social contracts, whether it be potential or actual, is what makes for personhood. But, again, what of the severely cognitively disabled? They will never have that degree of consciousness. What of babies who are born without abnormalities, but maybe are subject to baby shaken syndrome? Do they lose their personhood when they lose that potential for entering into social contracts?
One might argue that if it’s not evil to pull the plug on a brain-dead person, it’s not evil to abort a preborn child with yet no brain activity. There’s an obvious problem here – the preborn child is only in this state temporarily. They are going through the necessary and basic motions which lead to brain activity. There is no consciousness without this process. Is it then ok to exploit that window of limited consciousness, despite knowing that greater consciousness will be realised in a matter of mere months? What if we knew that the coma patient would recover in due time? Are we then free to do as we please with the unconscious human until that moment?
Along a similar vein, abortion-supporters may use the analogy of a blueprint and house, suggesting that destroying a blueprint is not comparable to destroying a house. However, this is not comparable, as a blueprint will not naturally turn into a house, while a human zygote will naturally turn into a human baby. A more accurate analogy would be the acorn and the oak tree - this is another talking point, for which the abortion-supporter may say, "An acorn is not an oak tree and a fetus is not a child." An acorn is not a tree. This is true. But an acorn is an oak. This analogy is more accurately phrased as, "An oak acorn is not an oak tree and a human fetus is not a human child," which is about as revolutionary as saying that a human child is not a human adult - well, duh. Both are human, just at different stages of development. Destroying the oak acorn does in fact destroy the same oak plant.
The abortion-opposer might go on to say that things which develop do not come into existence piece by piece, but rather are already there from the beginning and simply become more mature over time. A car is constructed and comes into existence piece by piece, but a human does not do this. The substance view says that you are the same being through every stage of development - you did not come from an embryo, but you once were an embryo. If you are valuable now, then you were valuable back then also. You did not have the same capacities as you do now, but it was still you. If we are going to detach ourselves from our embryonic past, then we can just as easily detach ourselves from our own childhoods or the self from last week, which can lead to some unfavourable consequences.
In a podcast debate, liberal live-streamer Destiny began to quiz anti-abortion activist Lila Rose. He asks her, “Take a person, chop off their arm and replace it with a bionic arm. Is that still a person?” Lila replies, “Yes.” Destiny continues, “Chop off the leg and replace the leg. Is that still a person?” “Yes.” “What if you get rid of the heart and replace it with a bionic heart? Is that still a person?” “Yes.” “Now what if you just replace the brain? Is that still the same person?” Lila responds, “It would still be wrong to kill that person, Destiny.”
Destiny presents a fascinating thought experiment here. Switch out a person’s brain with another one, and yes, I do not think that would be the same person - but a person nonetheless. Switch out a person’s brain with a bionic one, and things get complicated. Let’s go back to talking about parts and wholes. I do not believe a functional brain is necessary for personhood, but I do believe that once there is a functional brain, it becomes a primary player in one’s personhood. This feels terribly strange to say, and yet relatively uncontroversial. It’s a view not often articulated, but has been represented in media (e.g., Alita: Battle Angel, in which some people exist as a brain in a bionic body).
Replacing a human brain with a bionic brain appears to be a similar existence to being brain dead while the body still functions. As an adult, you need a brain to live - but an embryo does not need a brain to live. While no brain is just as functionally good as a dead brain, a potential living brain is far greater and worth protecting. By its inner human nature, the embryo is a person with the capacity for a brain in the future. It is of the same substance as its adult self.
Suppose that I (rather gruesomely) stumble upon another person’s body part - a leg perhaps. It would be abhorrent for me to chop it up and feed it to my dog. Similarly, if I stumbled upon a corpse. Out of respect for the moral value of the owner (whether they be alive or since gone), I should treat their body with respect. Like I should respect another person's wallet, I should respect another persons body to a far greater extent. Faced with a human body with a bionic brain, I think I couldn’t help but to afford such a being some degree of moral consideration. Despite the brain not being part of the equation, it would be horrendous for me to stab someone’s leg. I’m confident that when we speak of “bodily autonomy,” we are not just talking about the brain - because then “bodily autonomy” would have no place in the abortion argument, where our focus is primarily on the uterus.
But even while emphasising the importance of the brain, there are many miraculous people who have done relatively well without substantial parts of their brain. So, the brain surely cannot be the be-all-end-all of personhood.
Alongside talk of substances and philosophical wholes, I feel pushed to speak of the supernatural, as it sits most comfortably here. I might instead emphasise the transcendent personhood of the human soul. Personhood lies in the soul. In being alive. As already stated, I feel that replacing a human brain with a bionic brain seems similar to brain death.
Again, the abortion-supporter might argue, what about the fact that a preborn child has never been conscious, rational, or self-aware? This view holds that life has value due to experience, not essence. A grown person, prior to being in a coma, has experienced life and has a conscious desire to live. But why is that relevant? Even with such a view in mind, most abortion-supporters still draw a line at some point along the pregnancy. But why? The fetus hasn’t expressed a desire to live. Even for months after birth, babies cannot be said to be rational, self-aware, or conscious (at least in any way comparable to a grown human). Perhaps it is pain perception that abortion-supporters are concerned about – but anaesthetic can nullify that. And yet killing a child then would still be abhorrent. Why?
Killing is not wrong because of pain or awareness, it is wrong because the thing killed is a human. Along a different vein, Don Marquis argues that killing is understood in terms of what killing does to us – it imposes on us the misfortune of premature death. Premature death is a misfortune because when one is dead, one has been deprived of future life. Suppose one man falls into a coma from which he never recovers and dies after many years. Suppose another man dies suddenly. Neither scenario seems more unfortunate than the other, both were deprived of a future conscious life. Likewise, abortion deprives preborn children of future conscious lives.
Briefly, we might also consider that consciousness and rationality come in different degrees. If consciousness/rationality/self-awareness is the measure of worth, is a 10-year-old more valuable than a 2-year-old who has less awareness? Does a 40-year-old have more worth than a 90-year-old dementia patient? We seem to be equally concerned about the wellbeing of all persons, but if human worth is a gradient, then surely that would not be the case. Surely personhood does not slide in and out of existence like this.
Some legal rights are based on age or law (e.g., drive a car), but natural human rights are based solely upon humaness/personhood. Neither age nor social norms can undo this. Sometimes human rights clash with one another; however, the right to life is not something which can or should lose to the right to bodily autonomy (see "It's my body!"). It is important to be wary of this legal-natural rights distinction.
Some will argue that the capacity for pleasure and pain is what qualifies personhood. This excludes fetuses and coma patients but includes many animals. This definition becomes uncomfortable when one considers that, choosing between a coma patient and a bird, one would have to prioritise the bird. This kind of reasoning has led Peter Singer to say that since "a chimpanzee, dog, or pig, for instance, will have a higher degree of self-awareness and a greater capacity for meaningful relations with others than a severely retarded infant or someone in a state of advanced senility . . . we must grant these animals a right to life as good as, or better than, such retarded or senile humans" (Animal Liberation).
But even supposing that a preborn child is not a person, does that then justify killing it? We even treat the dead with respect! How much more should we treat living humans with respect. We do not freely go around killing other mammals that inconvenience us. Are we free to butcher and inflict terrible pain upon animals? Of course not! Such a thing is abhorrent and signals the makings of a psychopath. Even a meat-eater has a conscience about how animals should be treated. And yet, most animals are not self-aware nor have the potential to be so. They have no real concept of “I” or “me,” and never will.
But the pro-abortion position continues, claiming that even if one can argue that personhood includes the human embryo, people do not behave in a way that treats the embryo as equally valuable to a person already born. Using a dilemma to illustrate this point, they posit that this proves that preborn children are not as valuable as persons outside the womb:
“Imagine you’re in a burning building. In one room there is a 2-month-old baby. In the other room there are 20 frozen embryos. You only have the time to save the one baby or the 20 embryos, but not both.”
Most would save the baby, but does this intuition prove that the embryos are sub-human? No. The fact that I would save the baby over the embryos does not prove that the embryos aren’t persons. For example, what if you had to choose between the love of your life (i.e., your spouse) and 20 random strangers. You’re probably going to save your spouse. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the strangers aren’t persons. It just means that you have a stronger emotional attachment to your spouse (as you should), and perhaps even a sense of obligation to save them above others.
Even as you sit there reading this, people are dying in the world - and yet you are unfazed. Does this mean that the people out there dying aren’t persons with inherent worth? Obviously, no. Just because you’re unfazed by their deaths does not mean that they are not persons and does not mean you can kill them yourself. On the other hand, if you received information that your friend had died, you would have an emotional reaction. Indeed, even if you had found out that your dog had died, you would react – and under the majority account of personhood, your dog is not even a person! The fact that we are inclined to choose the baby over 20 embryos proves nothing about the personhood of those embryos.
We might save the baby because it is more familiar to us. We have seen babies being cared for outside of the womb, but embryos are hidden and cared for within the womb. Certainly, we are more inclined to purposefully care for a baby, for (in a normal circumstance) an embryos care is biological and automatic, requiring no deliberate or direct action on our part.
We might save the baby because we believe we are more likely to succeed in caring for it. Chances are that the baby will keep living upon it being rescued. But upon rescuing the embryos, we must be careful to keep them frozen or else they will die – Does the mechanism require electricity? Where do I take the embryos? Who will the embryos be implanted into? Will the embryos respond well to implantation? The inability to save the embryos is not the same as directly killing the embryos. And even more than that, not saving the embryos does not serve as proof that they are sub-human.
Other notes:
• Viability/dependency is also not a good qualifier for personhood, as it also includes disabled people and newborns.
• The inability to recognise something for what it is does not change the reality of what it is. In it's early stages, it is difficult to see how a human embryo could become a human adult. For many animals, embryos look the same - however, this does not negate the personhood of the human embryo, just as an inability to recognise gold from pyrite does not negate the value of gold.
• Identical (monozygotic) twins are conceived from one fertilized egg which separates into two embryos after it has begun to divide. This change, however, is not evidence of an initial lack of personhood. There was always a person - we just didn't know that there would be two.
• It may also be interesting to consider whether people with dissociative identity disorder are one or more persons. Perhaps one could employ the argument from personal identity – "the continuity between my mature, conscious self and my embryonic, fetal and childhood self and my future older, possibly demented self." Though, on the practical level, it makes little difference, for moral consideration is attributed to the body by virtue of even a single alters personhood.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQKZsfy_YdM&ab_channel=PintsWithAquinas <- Special thanks to this source featuring Stephanie Gray: Highly recommend!
https://www.instagram.com/p/CtM4JIbgVgw/ Parts and wholes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X543XGBboA&ab_channel=ScottKlusendorf The substance view.