A Fetus is not a Person

Great Debates
1

The English language is a collection of words with attached meanings. A concrete noun, in particular, means a thing or a collection of things. Sometimes two such nouns refer to overlapping categories, other times to non-overlapping categories. For instance, the words ‘horse’ and ‘cow’ refer to two categories, and nothing lies in both categories.

This thread is about two other such nouns that don’t overlap: ‘fetus’ and ‘person’.
A fetus is the thing existing during pregnancy within a woman’s body. A person is the thing that comes into existence after birth, after the pregnancy ends.

No one tries to warp the definition of fetus. Those who wish to convince us that a fetus can be person will focus and changing the definition of person. But the definition of a person is clear: a person has a physically independant body and a mentally independant mind. Hence during a pregnancy there can’t be a second person existing as a part of a woman’s body. The person only starts existing at the moment of birth.

And how shall we know that this definition is correct? By logic, common sense, legal agreement, moral agreement, and religious agreement.

When we walk into a room, we can tell how many people are in the room. It’s rather easy, we just count up the number of bodies we see. The idea that there may be extra people hiding inside some of those bodies never crosses our mind, not even the minds of those claiming to believe that a fetus is a person.

Obviously there is a stage early in pregnancy when an observer cannot even tell that the woman is pregnant. If life began at conception, we would then have a case of a human being who existence provided no evidence whatsoever to the outside world. This is abusrd.

Legally a fetus is not a person. It has no rights, doesn’t count as a person on a census, and can’t be taken into custody if a court determines that it’s being abused (as even a baby can).

Religiously, many religions claim to view a fetus as a person. Realistically, though, none of them actually treat a fetus that way.

On logical grounds, consider this. A week from now is my twenty-third birthday. What does that mean? It means that, on that day, I will be twenty-three years old. Alternately, it will have been twenty-three years since my birth. Alternately, I will have been in existence for exactly twenty-three years. If I had actually been a person at the time of conception, then my twenty-third birthday would instead have fallen at the start of last December.

Suppose an elevator has a limit of five people. Can three pregnant women ride it simultaneously? Obviously they can.

etc…

The bottom line is this. Some people say that a fetus is a person. Others say it’s not. But those who claim to believe that it is do not act in a way that agrees logically with that belief.

2

I’m totally pro-choice. (I’d even say “militantly” pro-choice in the sense that I would help out in making sure the safest possible abortions possible get performed anyway if they are made illegal)

But I think your argument isn’t a good one. If we define “adult” to mean “person who is 21 years old”, then surely “18 year old” and “adult” don’t overlap, but “adult” is a social construct subject to revamping at will. So is person. The right-to-lifers aren’t trying to claim that the conventional/contemporary definition of “person” overlaps that of “fetus”, they’re pretty obviously claiming that it should.

(Me, I don’t care if the bleeping fetus is a person, a citizen, or even a registered member of the Republican Party, I still don’t think that excuses forcing someone to remain pregnant if they no longer want to be)

3

I agree that the basic crux of the arguments that the pro-life movement make are little more than cheap word-games that carefully avoid serious ethical consideration. They try to transitively apply certain moral protections onto a new class of being simply by jumping up and down about how one definition of a related word can be extended to include fetuses.

But the bottom line is that our moral and ethical judgements were formed not out of cheap semantical games or hollow declarations: they were built out of centuries, millenia, of experience and argument. The case for the equal dignity of African Americans and women was not simply a matter of realizing that the word “human” applied to them as well. Rather, there are underlying REASONS why we consider certain beings to be deserving of certain treatment and protections and other beings not to be. And these reasons are not word games, but rather real experiences with the capacities and results of various forms of treatments towards these beings, as well as the empathy that undergirds most moral sentiments. The cause of human rights was developed with a particular underlying conception of what a human was and why it was important to protect its rights. That conception was based on experience with particular sorts of beings that acted and felt and experienced and argued in particular ways. To try (like “that is simply what a human being looks like at that age!”), without even an attempt at a sensible extra argument, to extend that range of arguments to a completely different class of being is simply intellectually lazy.

4

Interesting. Does your logic apply to redistributive taxes as well? Should the rich be able to disconnect themselves from the government-enhanced sustenance of the poor?

5

:confused: How is this even related to “forcing someone to remain pregnant if they no longer want to be”? Are the rich pregnant with the poor or the poor pregnant with the rich?

What, in short, are you talking about?

6

Your declaration that this condition only begins at birth is faulty. Well before birth, the fetus has an independent mind. It also has a body that is neither wholly dependent nor wholly independent. There have been babies delivered, healthy and alive, from mothers who have died. The dependence of a child does not end at the severing of the umbilical cord (and there have been people who have argued that infanticide should be permitted for some period of time following birth based on just that argument).

Now, since this thread is not explicitly about abortion rights, I have no intention of throwing in a lot more extraneous discussion. However, the OP, while a nice attempt to declare a principal that would define the abortion debate in simple terms, has failed to produce a persuasive reason to accept that declaration.

7

I assume that your argument is that someone shouldn’t be forced to do something burdensome for the good of someone else: even if that someone else might die for lack of it (and apparently, this would apply even if the original person intentionally created this situation in the first place). What I’m asking is: why isn’t this principle a general one? Why does this liberty apply only to a mother/fetus and not to any other relationship.

8

Is a “Siamese” twin a person? (He doesn’t have a fully independent body.)

Is a “test-tube baby” a person?

Why should the physical location (i.e. inside a woman’s womb or not) determine whether something’s a “person”?

If I’m hiding behind the couch, am I still a person? After all, you don’t see me!

Is this really your idea of a valid argument?

9

So “personhood” is defined by location? A 36 week old fetus is NOT a person, but a baby delivered at 34 weeks IS? :dubious: Generally the pro choice line of “personhood” (that I’ve seen from other pro choice posters) has been about development, not location.

Cite?

Of course, “logic” and “common sense” and “legal agreement” etc… dictated (at one time) that black folks were not complete persons either…are you sure you wanna stick with that horse you rode in on?

I LOVE when folks make this “legal” argument. As if exisiting laws are final…should never be challenged. I’ll pass your thougtful observations along to gay folks looking for marriage rights…they’ll love your reasoning!

I LOVE your reasoning. So if ONE twin is born February 2nd…but the OTHER twin is born February 3rd, the twins have not been in existence for the same amount of time because of their birth dates? Ergo they can’t really be “twins”? Brilliant! :smack:

Actually the bottom line is that pro choice folks are usually the ones with a focus on when “personhood” is defined.

Me? not so much. Actually I haven’t seen ANY of the pro life folks who regularly post here make an appeal to “personhood” when debating their position. (They might point out some of the follies associated with some personhood arguments, like I did above, but they’re generally arguing from biology instead of philosophy).

10

  1. To some extent, I understand it does apply to other relationships: you can’t force somebody to give blood, even during a crisis (outside of the military, that is).

  2. That is to say, law and common morality treat body and property differently. I can’t see how this is unreasonable: they are, after all, different entities.

3a) That said (and separately), if it could be shown that an x-week fetus has compelling characteristics of a person (or a mind, to be more specific), I personally would consider regulation of such an x-week fetus to be acceptable.

3b) Then again, Roe permits regulation of third trimester fetuses. For some reason, anti-abortionists haven’t followed through with this line attack in a meaningful way.

3c) Regulating the method of a third trimester abortion procedure doesn’t strike me as a particularly effective way of curbing such abortions. So the so-called partial birth abortion controversy doesn’t really address 3a or 3b.

11

My reason for supporting abortions is this:

A fetus may or may not be a person, or survive pregnancy. The mother is alive as we know it, and independant of other life forms to stay alive.

Denying abortion certainly infringes on the rights of the mother.

Aborting a fetus may or may not infringe on the rights of a person.

To me, the clearer evil is denying someone control over their body all of the time instead of perhaps denying the right to life.

12

I have yet to find a defintion of person that says this. All the ones I have seen make no mention of birth at all. Do you have a cite for this or is it just how you are using the word?

Again a cite for how any of these use your definition of the word person.

This needs some work. Just because you cannot see someone does not mean they are not there.

There is evidence of their existence. Just because you cannot see it does not mean it is not there. If there was no evidence then pregnancy tests would not work.

I think that this is the point the anti-abortionists are trying to make. Just because it has no rights does not mean to say it should have no rights. And there have been cases of women being prosecuted for abuse to unborn babies.

Do you have a cite for this? Or even an explanation of how religions don’t treat a fetus as a person?

No. It is not an anniversary of your conception date, it is an anniversary of the day of your birth. Your birthday says nothing about when you become a person. As has been stated, some societies do not believe you are a person until some time after your birth. Some believe you become a person some time before your birth. Using a birthdate as anything other than a date of birth is nonsensical.

You are not serious?

Again how do they not act that way?

There are many reasons to be pro/anti abortion. Playing semantic word games like this is not one of them.

13

People here consider themselves to be one year old at birth. They include the time of the pregnancy.

14

As far as I’m concerned, the abstract meaning of person is irrelevant. I believe that any given unborn probably has a spiritual presence created by God for express purposes of His own. Whether or not that unborn can think, live independantly, and so on, is irrelevant to my moral choices.

15

What about other non-feeling objects into which God might have placed a spiritual presence? For instance, that piece of toast with Jesus’ face on it. Is it murder to eat it? Wh oknows the mind of God?

16

Well, what is the difference between the body you had as a fully developed fetus in the third trimester and the body you had when you were born? You existed when you were still in your mother’s womb. It was your body in her, wasn’t it? You legally didn’t exist until you were born. Considering your definition of a “person” (independent body and mind) you suddenly obtained “an independant mind” as soon as you were born? No, you already had an independant mind when you were born. So, obviously such a thing existed in you before you were physically born into the world.

You could make the same argument with the same women and the same elevator. Let’s say the women had their newborn babies with them. Then there’d be six people in the elevator. Here, who’s considered a person here and who’s not?

I don’t have a definition of a person written in stone, but you can obviously tell I’m pro-choice. Scientifically, a fetus may or may not be a person, but to me, it’s still a living being. I think that’s what really counts. I don’t know; these are my thoughts. Don’t hurt me…I’m just a kid.

17

You better get this message to Scott Peterson. He got a 2nd Degree Murder charge for killing a non-person fetus:

Now this poses some problems for the OP. How can you murder someone who is not a person?

18

Simply by defining the law to have the crime of murder also applying to the unlawful termination of a pregnancy.

19

Logic, common sense, and legal agreement are what we’ve got, so we’d better learn to live with it.

There are two views on where morality comes from. One view pins it to God, Zeus and company, the Hindu Pantheon or some other divine source. In that view, a supernatural entity has made the rules and humanity’s only charge is to obey.

However, all the major moral philosophers of recent centuries, the ones who shaped our views have rejected this line. They instead proclaim that morality comes from logic, common sense, and legla agreement. Hobbes laid the basis for modern systems of government by logically arguing for the need for government. Thomas Jefferson began the Declaration of Independance with “We hold these truths to be self-evident;…”. Functionally, that’s the same as saying “We know from common sense that…” Most people would say that we should we have freedom of speech, for instance, becuase of the Constitution. Yet the Constitution is a legal agreement. It is not (as some seem to think) a fundamental law of the universe.

So if you’re unsettled about using logic, common sense, and legal agreement, then you’re plain out of luck. Unless you want to go back to the Middle Ages, you’re stuck. Dredging up slavery or anything else won’t save you from that. If slavery single-handedly proved that we can’t use our brains to determine things, then there wouldn’t be anything right or wrong to determine.

20

To the Siamese twins argument. Show someone a pair of Siamese twins. Ask them how many people they see. They’ll say two. When asked the same question of a pregnant woman, they’ll say one. That’s why we refer to her as “a pregnant woman”, where the Siamese twins are refered to as “Siamese twins”.

(Incidentally, we may alternately refer to a pregnant woman as “an expectant mother”. That means someone who expects to become a mother at a point in the futre. If the fetus was actually a baby, then the woman carrying would not be an expectant mother".)

Moving right along to the “person behind the couch” argument. What’s the point? It’s clear what I was trying to say in the ‘counting people in a room’ argument: that there’s a difference between a fetus in the womb and a physically independant living body. You’re not going to prove anything by trying to inflate an intentional misinterpretation of a metaphor.