# About the significance of birth as a landmark moment in attaining personhood. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 24, 2010, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295 "2010-01-24T23:59:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2010, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/81 "2010-01-25T18:29:23Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Viability. Sadly, that’s not a bright line itself, but regardless of brain activity I don’t think an organism that isn’t self supporting counts as a life. There is no such thing as a self-supporting organism. What organisms did you consume for lunch today? ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2010, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/82 "2010-01-25T18:33:07Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I’m quite aware the Spartans did it, but that is not related to the naming practices of Judaism and Christianity. Of course… Well, there is no _of course not_ in history. That being said, no, they are not directly connected, except in that the naming practices tended not to be done at birth due to the chances for the baby not to survive. The exposure-on-a-hill, when found, historically, has verged from ‘accepted practice as they are not human beings yet’ to murder. ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2010, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/83 "2010-01-25T18:54:37Z")
Thanks for the link to Sagan’s article. A very interesting read. In response to no one in particular but after having read all the response so far. I realize that this is hard. That’s what makes it worth discussing. I realize that the line is not clear, that’s why there is need for the discussion. Also, although I see that many of my points make me look like I am erring on the side of infanticide, I believe that all the issues are the same if we draw the line at some point before birth. The issue remains that personhood is at some point gained and the line is not clear. Date of conception (to determine a certain time of development) is either self-reported or an estimate. The quickening is self-reported. I can live with those. What will come out of this discussion won’t be signed into law the next day. If we end up agreeing that a baby becomes a person when he starts pondering about the differences between the left and the right boob, I can manage that we cannot measure that with much certainty. My main concern now is that I think that a life that doesn’t suffer (or cheer or anything as long as there is some awareness and a response to it) at the thought of its end is not a life that needs to be protected. This is a similar case to a patient in a permanent vegetative state. I realize that handling those is far from being something we all agree on, but at least we can all agree that there is something to be debated there. ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2010, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/84 "2010-01-25T18:57:55Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > I’m challenging the idea that nothing significant physically happens in a baby at birth. Fair enough. I apologize if my wording was not clear, but I definitely mean changes relevant to attaining personhood. Things that differentiate us from fish and butterflies. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2010, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/85 "2010-01-25T19:06:14Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > But that’s what makes it convenient. We can’t nail down the probably nonexistent moment of personhood to use as a decision point; so we use birth instead. And I agree with this. I feel that after the “viability” point (whatever that is, but it’s probably around the 5th-6th month of gestation), abortions should be based far more on medical concepts, such as endangerment of the mother’s life or as mentioned earlier, issues with the fetus (Down’s, etc.). But since that point is so nebulous, it just is common sense to use birth as the defining moment of the beginning of life. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2010, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/86 "2010-01-25T19:39:47Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > There is no such thing as a self-supporting organism. What organisms did you consume for lunch today? If I could put the point of my statement in one endzone of a football field, and you at the other end, you’d have to run out of the stadium, across the parking lot, and into the next city to properly represent how much you missed it by. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2010, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/87 "2010-01-25T19:59:10Z")
Birth is the moment that the person emerges from the underworld (depths of the earth), to the surface (Ps 139:13,15), which has nothing to do with the start of personhood, [IMHO] as that was always a person, a aspect of the parents spirit which is given it’s own identity and life, but always part of and connected to the parent, even into death, even death by abortion[/IMHO] ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2010, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/88 "2010-01-25T20:01:57Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > If I could put the point of my statement in one endzone of a football field, and you at the other end, you’d have to run out of the stadium, across the parking lot, and into the next city to properly represent how much you missed it by. :roll: ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2010, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/89 "2010-01-25T20:47:08Z")
> [@E-Sabbath](#): > > Of course… Well, there is no _of course not_ in history. That being said, no, they are not directly connected, except in that the naming practices tended not to be done at birth due to the chances for the baby not to survive. The exposure-on-a-hill, when found, historically, has verged from ‘accepted practice as they are not human beings yet’ to murder. Not wanting to invest in a baby because of the high probability it will die and killing it are two different things. Of course killing a baby is not murder when it is sanctioned by society - it isn’t by definition, no more than killing a convicted murderer is. Which brings me to a point I haven’t seen discussed yet - what was the miscarriage rate in ancient times? If it was high, I have a hard time believing a fetus was considered to be a person, any more than a newborn baby was, and abortion could hardly be murder. I can see someone not the father causing a woman to lose a baby being considered a crime, on a property basis, but not anything close to murder. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2010, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/90 "2010-01-25T21:41:42Z")
**mswas** , after observing the screwing around you’ve been doing trying to obfuscate the definition of “person” beyond the point of unusability, I decided to look it up, checking my usual first choice [Merriam-Webster’s](http://www.merriam-webster.com/netdict/person). The first definition given is “human, individual”. This definition knifes the little game you’re playing in the back: by this, Hawkins is a person, a birthed baby is a person, and a fetus is _not_, as it is not a separate and distinct entity from its mother. Assuming we were going to debate the ethics of this based on personhood, it also _clearly_ marks birth as the demarcation point, as that’s the point of separation. Now, personally, I would be willing to give some ground and set the elective abortion cutoff point at the start of the third trimester, since my vague sense of the issue that that that’s around the point where we may start to be dealing with a reasonably complex excuse for a mind, which might be worth preserving whether or _not_ it qualifies as a person yet. (Keeping in mind that some people never develop a mind, yaddah yaddah - they eventually get born instead, which is also sufficient.) So yeah, I don’t mind discussing the issue reasonably - but if we’re going to be playing stupid games with the word “person”, then I’ll stick with the defintion and not bother to compromise from the ‘at birth’ position that it explicitly implies. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2010, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/91 "2010-01-25T22:00:07Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Except that it isn’t arbitrary. It’s very specific and demonstrable. Are you talking about birth or my example using the first word? > [@Rumor\_Watkins](#): > > except, not. there’s little definitiveness as to exactly when impregnation occurred, when the zygote got implanted into the uterine wall, etc. etc. > > birth is not arbitrary at all. it’s a discreet occurrence that is irrefutable and simple to delineate. As much as I would like to agree with you, and I’m pro-choice, I think the human tendency to mark moments by events is a poor arbitrary line. It’s like people deciding the year 2000 was special just because it has a lot of zeros. A few things change at birth, this is true. But a few things change earlier in the womb as well. The fact that we find it hard to decide when some of the other things occur is limited by technology. I fear that if we were to simply say it’s hard to figure out when a zygote implants, for example, and when we have the technology to find out, abortion foes will come back and try to push the line in the sand back even further. That’s why I say it’s completely arbitrary from the time the penis enters the vagina to birth. So we pick birth and give the mom the most time to change her mind. I’m fine with that. If you limit yourself to something else entirely arbitrary like survivability, then you run the risk of technological advancements encroaching on the right of abortion. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/92 "2010-01-26T04:21:42Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Which brings me to a point I haven’t seen discussed yet - what was the miscarriage rate in ancient times? Incredibly high. From activity to starvation to excessive lead in one’s diet, miscarriage was very high in ancient to near modern times. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/93 "2010-01-26T04:41:16Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > **mswas** , after observing the screwing around you’ve been doing trying to obfuscate the definition of “person” beyond the point of unusability, I decided to look it up, checking my usual first choice [Merriam-Webster’s](http://www.merriam-webster.com/netdict/person). The first definition given is “human, individual”. This definition knifes the little game you’re playing in the back: by this, Hawkins is a person, a birthed baby is a person, and a fetus is _not_, as it is not a separate and distinct entity from its mother. Assuming we were going to debate the ethics of this based on personhood, it also _clearly_ marks birth as the demarcation point, as that’s the point of separation. You so obviously didn’t understand my argument that there really isn’t anything for me to say to this. My entire point was that anyone who is human is a person. > [@YogSosoth](#): > > Are you talking about birth or my example using the first word? I am talking about birth. It’s the least arbitrary of all criteria. ---
**Author:** ![Trepa\_Mayfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@Trepa\_Mayfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trepa_Mayfield)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/94 "2010-01-26T04:50:08Z")
> [@Sapo](#): > > My situation is two healthy kids one of which is now taking a nap after finishing a 3-day long project making a 3-foot tall giraffe out of household items. Thanks for your concern (said without a drop of sarcasm). Which is not to mean that I dodged the bullet and let the others behind me worry about this. Ah, that is good. 🙂 It seems like there have been a lot of birth threads lately, and most of the others seem to reflect their OPs’ personal situations. > [@Sapo](#): > > Precisely the point. This “apperification” is called birth when the baby is viable. Actually, I said “appearification” specifically to make the point that I was not referring to birth. How viable a fetus would be outside the womb, while related to when the baby is born, are not the same thing. And birth involves significantly more than moving the baby outside the mother. Or is that all it is? Maybe I’m in the wrong here. > [@Sapo](#): > > The more important point, and the one where my question hinges is whether this baby would know he is dying if left unassisted. Someone mentioned Stephen Hawking, if you unplugged him, he would know he is dying. There would be existential anguish over it, no matter how he feels about it. Would the baby know he is dying? And I don’t mean in the way mice and turtles deal with death. Crippled, animals struggle trying to do what they need to do until they just cannot and then lie there and carry on doing what little they can (breathing at least) until they die. At what point does a baby just stop to function at death and becomes aware of the fact that his existence is coming to an end? I think there was a movie once where the main character transported his brain back int time to his own fetus and strangled himself with his umbilical cord to prevent a horrible future. But time traveling aside, I’m not sure just how different the reaction of crippled animals are to humans that face down death. They say that mice, when cornered, will simply drop dead of fear. Does that make them more human than rats? Does that sentence mean anything? I’m pretty sure that babies, even straight out of the womb, have some understanding of death. Actually, as a teenage boy, I know very little about babies. But from what I know, I’m pretty sure they do. > [@Sapo](#): > > Date of conception (to determine a certain time of development) is either self-reported or an estimate. The quickening is self-reported. I can live with those. What will come out of this discussion won’t be signed into law the next day. If we end up agreeing that a baby becomes a person when he starts pondering about the differences between the left and the right boob, I can manage that we cannot measure that with much certainty. > > My main concern now is that I think that a life that doesn’t suffer (or cheer or anything as long as there is some awareness and a response to it) at the thought of its end is not a life that needs to be protected. This is a similar case to a patient in a permanent vegetative state. I realize that handling those is far from being something we all agree on, but at least we can all agree that there is something to be debated there. I disagree with you. I think that a baby feels suffering toward life-threatening dangers straight from birth, and even for a period of time in the womb. Enough to be a person. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/95 "2010-01-26T05:35:06Z")
> [@pedescribe](#): > > I’m pretty sure that babies, even straight out of the womb, have some understanding of death. Actually, as a teenage boy, I know very little about babies. But from what I know, I’m pretty sure they do. No; babies have a very limited understanding of, well, anything. They don’t appear to even understand that objects persist when hidden from sight, or that other creatures have feelings and awareness. You can’t understand death until you understand that others are alive and independent of your awareness, first. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/96 "2010-01-26T07:13:25Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Much of Western literature is about this very subject. ‘Til We Have Faces’ by C.S. Lewis is an interesting one on this subject. The basic idea is that one has to EARN their personhood. And the earning of personhood is a core tenet of Christianity, and thus a central theme of Western society. This muddies the waters. But it’s _also_ worth posting, in my view. Personhood is a continuum and can be extended past adulthood, if one works within a framework of personal growth. Some spend precious little time in the upper reaches of [Maslow’s hierarchy of needs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs); few attain [buddhahood](http://www.religioustolerance.org/buddhism.htm). **Sapo** might usefully define personhood in a tighter manner, but I think it’s clear that he’s concerned with more fundamental aspects of humanity, the least sophisticated ones that nonetheless distinguish us from nonprimate animals. But while we are dealing with a continuum, I think there are some bright lines that occur along the way: among them are conception, the onset of brainwave activity, birth, walking, [del]literacy[/del], [del]playing an instrument[/del], [del]calculus[/del], etc. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/97 "2010-01-26T16:10:22Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Birth is the moment that the person emerges from the underworld (depths of the earth), to the surface (Ps 139:13,15), I don’t believe that’s a reasonable interpretation of the particular quotes you’re using there. After all, Ps 139 15 continues into 16 thus; > [@](#): > > 15 My frame was not hidden from you > when I was made in the secret place. > When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, > > 16 your eyes saw my unformed body. > All the days ordained for me > were written in your book > before one of them came to be While 13 explicitly mentions the womb, if this is a reference to a time before birth, then that the text says that the days “ordained for me” have not yet happened yet indicates to me that life, or the “I”, has not yet begun. If anything i’d say you could make a very good case based on this that birth (if this is what it is referring to) is considered by this particular part of the text to be the beginning of a person. IOW, the “person” does not emerge at that time, but is created, as the days ordained for it begin. It seems pretty clear to me. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/98 "2010-01-26T16:22:00Z")
Just for the record, the OP’s premise that there is a legal distinction about the status of an infant in the moments before and after birth is a false one. Elective abortion is illegal in the 3rd trimester. The correct comparison is between a born baby and a 2nd trimester fetus. The designation of birth as the threshold to “personhood” is an arbitrary one, yes, but so is the designation of the 18th birthday as the threshhold to “adulthood.” Does a person undergo any transformation at the stroke of midnight on his/her birthday? You have to draw a line somewhere. Just as there is surely a difference between a child and an adult, even if there is no discrete moment of transformation, so there is also a difference between an embryo, or a fetus and a “person.” ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/99 "2010-01-26T18:15:14Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > I don’t believe that’s a reasonable interpretation of the particular quotes you’re using there. After all, Ps 139 15 continues into 16 thus; > > While 13 explicitly mentions the womb, if this is a reference to a time before birth, then that the text says that the days “ordained for me” have not yet happened yet indicates to me that life, or the “I”, has not yet begun. If anything i’d say you could make a very good case based on this that birth (if this is what it is referring to) is considered by this particular part of the text to be the beginning of a person. IOW, the “person” does not emerge at that time, but is created, as the days ordained for it begin. It seems pretty clear to me. Please, please, please, pretty please. Don’t. Not here. I specifically asked to keep religion out of this. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/100 "2010-01-26T18:18:01Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > This muddies the waters. But it’s _also_ worth posting, in my view. Personhood is a continuum and can be extended past adulthood, if one works within a framework of personal growth. Some spend precious little time in the upper reaches of [Maslow’s hierarchy of needs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs); few attain [buddhahood](http://www.religioustolerance.org/buddhism.htm). > > **Sapo** might usefully define personhood in a tighter manner, but I think it’s clear that he’s concerned with more fundamental aspects of humanity, the least sophisticated ones that nonetheless distinguish us from nonprimate animals. But while we are dealing with a continuum, I think there are some bright lines that occur along the way: among them are conception, the onset of brainwave activity, birth, walking, [del]literacy[/del], [del]playing an instrument[/del], [del]calculus[/del], etc. Well offering my personal opinion on it, I think personhood is conferred by sentience. Thus, a thinking machine like a Cylon is a person in the way a brain-dead comatose human body is not. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295.md?page=6)