# 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:** 8
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2010, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/141 "2010-01-31T20:11:45Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > 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. Re: > [@](#): > > 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 Contrast vs 16 to: > [@](#): > > Jeremiah 1:5 > “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” The formed body happens ‘in the womb’ and God appointed this person as prophet to the nations, therefore this person is a person in the womb, as a prophet is a person. ---
**Author:** ![Perciful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b38774/32.png) [@Perciful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Perciful)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/142 "2010-02-01T07:25:28Z")
If a baby isn’t a person until it is born then how come you get an extra count of murder for killing a pregnant woman? ---
**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:** [February 1, 2010, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/143 "2010-02-01T09:33:06Z")
> [@Perciful](#): > > If a baby isn’t a person until it is born then how come you get an extra count of murder for killing a pregnant woman? Because the anti-abortionists have pushed for that as an attempt to wedge the idea that an unborn fetus is a person into the law. At present, they argue that killing a pregnant woman deserves an extra count of murder; eventually, they could potentially use that precedent to argue that a woman who gets an abortion should be charged with murder. ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/144 "2010-02-01T12:27:23Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Because the anti-abortionists have pushed for that as an attempt to wedge the idea that an unborn fetus is a person into the law. At present, they argue that killing a pregnant woman deserves an extra count of murder; eventually, they could potentially use that precedent to argue that a woman who gets an abortion should be charged with murder. Actually, pro-choice that I am, I like the idea of killing a pregnant woman as 2 murders. If the woman chose to have that baby, there is a potential for a person in there, even if it is a person not yet able to fend much for himself. And if it is 3rd trimester, when that fetus is already viable and and an abortion is no longer an option, then it is already a person. For all this read person as “legal person” which is not what the thread was intended to discuss. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/145 "2010-02-01T15:02:07Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > 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. Continuing on this: This shows it is possible to kill a person in the womb: [QUOTE=Jeremiah 20:17] For he did not kill me in the womb, with my mother as my grave, her womb enlarged forever. [/QUOTE] Also: [QUOTE=Gen 3] 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return." [/QUOTE] This is the Lord speaking to Adam. Where Adam has started and will return to. And Adam is defined as ‘dust’, not the flesh body. Also Gen 3 > [@](#): > > 14 So the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, > "Cursed are you above all the livestock > and all the wild animals! > You will crawl on your belly > and you will eat dust > all the days of your life. The serpent, who is Satan (Rev 12:19), will eat of the dust, which is man. Sheol/Hell being underground (Jonah 2:6) is that place, where we start and unless saved will return, but we still exist. In [QUOTE=2 Corinthians 5:4] For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. [/QUOTE] and [QUOTE=2 Peter 1:13] I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body, [/QUOTE] The human body is just a tent, were our ‘essence’ is stored for a while. Also along another line: [QUOTE=Luke 1:41] When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. [/QUOTE] Elizabeth’s baby is John the Baptist (Luke 1:63), and John the Baptist is also Elijah, who existed earlier(Matt 11:14), showing the continuity of existance including the time in the womb. To go into the issue of breath entering a person to come ‘alive’, it is a component of living, breath does enter via the umbilical cord (as Jer 20:17 shows one can be killed in the womb, so one must be alive at that time), but even without that, one still exists. In Ez 37 > [@](#): > > 11 Then he said to me: "Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ The lifeless but existent slain people are able to speak ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/146 "2010-02-01T15:07:02Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Continuing on this: Why yes, by all means. Do not let the fact that nobody replied stop you from continuing your preaching in a thread that specifically asked for no churchy shit. ---
**Author:** ![Perciful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b38774/32.png) [@Perciful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Perciful)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/147 "2010-02-01T15:24:38Z")
You can’t achieve personhood without being born. It is legal to kill your unborn child but don’t kill anyone that is pregnant because that counts as two??? This is a list of famously, Great important people who were adopted and significantly contributed in influencing and changing the world. How devastated would the world be if these individuals would have never lived. Thank God their birth mothers did the right thing. Andy Berlin Anthony Williams Aristotle Art Linkletter Bo Diddley Buffy Sainte-Marie Carl-Theodor Dreyer Charlotte Anne Lopez Christina Crawford Clarissa Pinkola Estes Crazy Horse Dan O’Brien Daunte Culpepper Dave Thomas Debbie Harry D.M.C. Edgar Allan Poe Edward Albee Eleanor Roosevelt Eric Dickerson Faith Daniels Faith Hill Freddie Bartholomew George Washington Carver Greg Louganis James MacArthur James Michener Jean Jacques Rousseau Jesse Jackson JESUS ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/148 "2010-02-01T15:41:23Z")
Going on with my above reply: In Ez 37 life enters with wind or breath, also in Gen 2:7, and goes into the blood (see below quote), which allows the umbilical cord to deliver life to the baby: > [@](#): > > Leviticus 17:11 > For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life. Life is in the blood, so the first breath is not the beginning of life, but the delivery of life from the mother in the womb via the blood. ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/149 "2010-02-01T17:18:14Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Going on with my above reply: > In Ez 37 life enters with wind or breath, also in Gen 2:7, and goes into the blood (see below quote), which allows the umbilical cord to deliver life to the baby: > Life is in the blood, so the first breath is not the beginning of life, but the delivery of life from the mother in the womb via the blood. reported ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/150 "2010-02-01T17:23:22Z")
> [@Perciful](#): > > This is a list of famously, Great important people who were adopted and significantly contributed in influencing and changing the world. How devastated would the world be if these individuals would have never lived. Thank God their birth mothers did the right thing. If you are casting a net so wide that it catches Aristotle, Faith Hill and JESUS (the one with all caps, not to be confused with Jesus who sells tacos at 3rd and Broad) and you can only come up with 30 names, you are not making too strong a case for your side, whatever it is. As for the world devastation that their abortion would have brought, I am going to need a cite. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/151 "2010-02-01T17:29:56Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > No offense, but I see that as “irrelevent to the current discussion”. You’re the one who jumped in the middle of an aside between \*\*Sapo \*\*and I and extended it. ---
**Author:** ![Perciful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b38774/32.png) [@Perciful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Perciful)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/152 "2010-02-01T17:43:09Z")
Sap, I will try and find one. I was off topic, sorry. OK, I understand that after the third trimester the baby is considered to be viable, or to live. That is why they charge it as a double murder, but what if… The baby would not have lived. What if the murdered woman’s baby died at birth? Of course we will never know that because the mother died. We are presuming that at the third trimester the baby will be born but what if the baby was born dead? Or dies of a defect shortly after being born. Is it fair to charge someone with an assumption? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/153 "2010-02-01T18:28:20Z")
> [@Sapo](#): > > I do not wish to discuss law or religion. I don’t care what the law or some church have to say on the matter. **kanicbird** _et al_, please take the religious discussion to another thread. You’ve made your point in this one. ---
**Author:** ![Perciful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b38774/32.png) [@Perciful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Perciful)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/154 "2010-02-01T18:46:32Z")
> [@Sapo](#): > > If you are casting a net so wide that it catches Aristotle, Faith Hill and JESUS (the one with all caps, not to be confused with Jesus who sells tacos at 3rd and Broad) and you can only come up with 30 names, you are not making too strong a case for your side, whatever it is. > > As for the world devastation that their abortion would have brought, I am going to need a cite. [http://www.topix.com/forum/who/TNSPH89CFKQGD6KSF](http://www.topix.com/forum/who/TNSPH89CFKQGD6KSF) ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/155 "2010-02-01T19:15:27Z")
I am sure that there are even more. But a list of random celebrities is hardly a case for the necessity of these people to the world. I am sure that the world would have survived the absence of these and many others. Would history have been different? Maybe but not the end of the world. ---
**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:** [February 1, 2010, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/156 "2010-02-01T19:21:36Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > You’re the one who jumped in the middle of an aside between \*\*Sapo \*\*and I and extended it. You say this as though it’s a bad thing. > [@Sapo](#): > > Actually, pro-choice that I am, I like the idea of killing a pregnant woman as 2 murders. If the woman chose to have that baby, there is a potential for a person in there, even if it is a person not yet able to fend much for himself. And if it is 3rd trimester, when that fetus is already viable and and an abortion is no longer an option, then it is already a person. For all this read person as “legal person” which is not what the thread was intended to discuss. I support there being a class of crime for the deliberate unpermitted termination of somebody else’s fetus, but I balk at calling it murder. In the case of pre-3rd trimester, you state there’s nothing but a “potential” there, and that’s _obviously_ not the same thing as a person, and your post-3rd trimester is argument by assertion and begging the question, since the whole point of this thread is we don’t assume that 3rd-trimester = person. To me deliberately killing a fetus is like deliberately crushing somebody’s partially-assembled diamond-studded car. Whether it’s assembled enough to run or not isn’t the point; the point is that it’s not yours, and the person who owns it values it _very_ much and you can’t be going around smashing it. A person is allowed to smash their _own_ diamond-studded car of course - or hire somebody to smash it. Where smashing the car turns into murder is the point where there’s an actual person being killed (not a “potential person”). This clearly depends on the answer to the question of when a fetus qualifies as a person. Which isn’t something you can just _assume_, not in this thread anyway. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/157 "2010-02-01T19:25:06Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > You say this as though it’s a bad thing. Nope. It’s not a bad thing. You are welcome to start a conversation about something, and then claim it as being beside the point all you want. 😃 I think the deliberate killing of the fetus by someone else should be classified as murder. Because it has the potential to be a human life, and if the Mother intends to bring it into being as such, she deserves to do so. Only the Mother should be able to take advantage of the legal loophole regarding the personhood of the fetus. A Mother sacrifices a great deal of herself to bring a fetus to term, and as such it this should be recognized. In terms of simplicity, I think the fetus should be regarded as a person, except when it conflicts with the rights of the Mother to biological sovereignty. If you are not the host to the fetus parasite, then you should have no legal claim to its rights of self-determination. ---
**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:** [February 1, 2010, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/158 "2010-02-01T19:51:51Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Nope. It’s not a bad thing. You are welcome to start a conversation about something, and then claim it as being beside the point all you want. 😃 I wasn’t saying it was beside the point - I was saying you were _wrong_. But moving on to things of greater interest… > [@mswas](#): > > I think the deliberate killing of the fetus by someone else should be classified as murder. Because it has the potential to be a human life, and if the Mother intends to bring it into being as such, she deserves to do so. Only the Mother should be able to take advantage of the legal loophole regarding the personhood of the fetus. A Mother sacrifices a great deal of herself to bring a fetus to term, and as such it this should be recognized. In terms of simplicity, I think the fetus should be regarded as a person, except when it conflicts with the rights of the Mother to biological sovereignty. If you are not the host to the fetus parasite, then you should have no legal claim to its rights of self-determination. By this logic, if you steal a dollar from me, you should be charged with stealing ten dollars from me, because that dollar was _potentially_ going to be invested in an interest-earning asset that would net me ten dollars over its lifetime. Litigating on “potential” seems very problematic to me, in no small part because we don’t really do that elsewhere in law. I can’t bury a living person in the ground and then shrug it off as being okay because the person was a potential corpse. (Heck, I can’t even do that if the person was on their deathbed.) This isn’t to say that it should be okay to go around punching pregnant women in the stomach - I just think that the crime you’re committing in that case is an attack on the woman’s property. Very valued property, to be sure, with an accordingly harsh punishment - make it as harsh as for murder if you like. But I think it’s valuable to distinguish between this and actual murder, since the crimes are different - as exhibited by the fact that if it’s a crime against property, then abortion _isn’t_ a loophole. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/159 "2010-02-01T19:54:24Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > I wasn’t saying it was beside the point - I was saying you were _wrong_. But moving on to things of greater interest… Ok, we won’t get into your logical fallacy here. 😉 Fair enough. > [@](#): > > By this logic, if you steal a dollar from me, you should be charged with stealing ten dollars from me, because that dollar was _potentially_ going to be invested in an interest-earning asset that would net me ten dollars over its lifetime. No. > [@](#): > > Litigating on “potential” seems very problematic to me, in no small part because we don’t really do that elsewhere in law. I can’t bury a living person in the ground and then shrug it off as being okay because the person was a potential corpse. (Heck, I can’t even do that if the person was on their deathbed.) Because the point being we should accept a fetus as a person by default and make a loophole for Mothers, as opposed to defining personhood in such a way that fetuses are exempt. If you punch a pregnant woman in the stomach you should be charged with murder. > [@](#): > > This isn’t to say that it should be okay to go around punching pregnant women in the stomach - I just think that the crime you’re committing in that case is an attack on the woman’s property. Very valued property, to be sure, with an accordingly harsh punishment - make it as harsh as for murder if you like. But I think it’s valuable to distinguish between this and actual murder, since the crimes are different - as exhibited by the fact that if it’s a crime against property, then abortion _isn’t_ a loophole. I disagree. I think that the default should be the recognition of the fetus’s humanity. The idea of a fetus as property is morally repugnant. ---
**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:** [February 1, 2010, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295/160 "2010-02-01T22:13:26Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Ok, we won’t get into your logical fallacy here. 😉 Fair enough. Keep shoveling all you like; I’m sure you’re convincing _somebody_. > [@mswas](#): > > No. Well, with this reasoned and in-depth argument, I have no choice but to concede, then. No, wait, the other thing. The one where your bald assertions that your position is right have no effect on me. That one. What makes the “potential” outcome of fetal development different than all the rest of them? > [@mswas](#): > > Because the point being we should accept a fetus as a person by default and make a loophole for Mothers, as opposed to defining personhood in such a way that fetuses are exempt. If you punch a pregnant woman in the stomach you should be charged with murder. Well, that’s a nice opinion you have there, sir, a real nice one. But in a thread about what the landmark should be for attaining personhood, I’d say that you have to do a little more than _declare_ that conception should be the marking point. Especially when your argument for it is that “potential” nonsense. > [@mswas](#): > > I disagree. I think that the default should be the recognition of the fetus’s humanity. The idea of a fetus as property is morally repugnant. Hate to tell you this but we treat _kids_ as property until they turn eighteen. So I don’t envy you the wash of repugnancy you must be drowning in right now. And fetuses aren’t humans. Look, I can assert too! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-significance-of-birth-as-a-landmark-moment-in-attaining-personhood/526295.md?page=9)