You keep saying that as if it is a given. My cat is self aware. It even has a personality, but it well never, ever, ever be a person. I have never met my father, he died before I was born, however, I have been to his grave many times and feel a person is buried there. Just as when my little girl was just a speck on the ultrasound I felt she was a person. Self awareness is just a step in devolpement of sentient beings. There are also levels of consciousness that either develope, or not, per individual. We don’t rate the personhood based on an individuals level of awareness of mental capacity. A dead human isn’t less of a person anymore than a developing fetus is.
Thank you. That’s it exactly.
And yet, the only scientific reasoning we have for what makes a person a person is that definition. If you can come up with a different one, I’m more than willing to judge it on its merits. Currently, though, all research indicates that personhood and awareness are controlled by higher brain functions.
Actually, if you have a cite for that I will admit that it is a given that personhood begins at self awareness.
I disagree. Personhood isn’t a scientific question, it is a moral or legal question.
There is no scientific definition of personhood, because real life doesn’t have any neon flashing signs of personhood. One day we have sperm and eggs, the next day a fertillized egg, a few days later a multicellular embryo, later a fetus, later a viable unborn baby, later a born baby, later a toddler, later a child, later a teenager, later an adult, later a corpse. Usually there’s a pretty clear divide between an alive person and a dead person, except sometimes it isn’t so clear cut. When someone’s brain is dead, we call them dead, even if their heart is still beating. But how dead is dead? People can be mostly dead, legally dead, dead for all intents and purposes, but there’s no such thing as a magic moment of death, there’s no such thing as a magic moment of personhood.
Biology doesn’t work that way. There are all kinds of phenomena that argue against a hard and fast definition of personhood, or life, or death. Identical twins. Conjoined twins. Some people are chimeras, where two genetically distinct embryos fused to form one individual. Babies without brains, babies without frontal lobes, babies with severely atrophied frontal lobes, babies with very small frontal lobes, babies with impaired brain function, babies that have no chance to live, babies that have almost no chance to live.
And all this doesn’t mean that we have to criminalize abortion because we can’t draw any bright lines. We know that most conceptions–greater than 50%–never make it to term. What does that say about the moral status of a fertillized egg or early embryo? It says that herculean efforts to save any particular random early embryo are doomed, because for every one you save there will be hundreds more that you can’t. So I’m not going to get upset if someone prevents the development of an early embryo, or prevents a fertillized egg from implanting, or undergoes a lifesaving procedure that has the side effect of ending any pregnancy they might or might not have.
But that doesn’t mean a baby is a tumor, or a thing. One day we have a cell, later we have a baby. How we treat this entity in between is a matter of ethics or law or morals, but it isn’t a scientific question, although scientific information can inform our moral decisions.
This hijack over “is it a person” is pointless. In the case of an ectopic pregnancy, it doesn’t matter-it’s a dangerous, often fatal condition and El Salvador’s law is anti-women.
Period.
:dubious:
What?
I’m glad to see this thread isn’t being derailed into an interminable and unwinnable debate about what constitutes personhood and is instead focusing on issues at least tangentially related to the OP, like to what extent the pro-life movement can be expected to stand up for a woman’s right to defend her own life with medically necessary procedures, or how seriously we ought to take the specifics of what the RCC says on the matter in Western society when the RCC’s actions in this case where it isn’t constrained by a more liberal populace tell a different story.
I agree completely.
But the hijack is NOT pointless. The statement was made that El Salvador’s law is the natural endpoint of the US pro life movement. This claim invites the reader to conclude that a valid “slippery slope” argument against current pro life positions may be made. It is with THAT claim that I take issue.
Again, you keep repeating “higher brain functions” as though it’s obvious and inarguable that this is the sine qua non of personhood. But I don’t agree that it is, and you cannot provide any “scientific evidence” to the contrary.
You want me to provide proof of a negative? Look, I realize I fall for your bait 8 times out of ten, but not this time.
Hmmm. For someone insisting her position is completely scientifically based, that certainly seems like a political argument.
No, I want you to provide proof of a positive: personhood definitively vests when and only if self-awareness exists. That was your claim. You’ve stated it repeatedly as a given. I want your proof.
Or I want you to admit that you’ve simply decided to adopt this definition, and that not everyone agrees with your definition, and your definition is not mandated by scientific evidence, but is merely a postulate of first instance.
Can you explain why? El Salvador’s law is the natural endpoint of a RCC pro-life movement. The RCC is extremely active in the US movement. Why should we think that the pro-life movement, insofar as the RCC is involved in it, would not enact something similar if it thought it could get away with it, i.e., if pro-choice people did not stop it from doing so?
Because the Salvadoran law does not accurately reflect the nuanced RCC position – it makes no room for the principle of double effect.
And yet the RCC was instrumental in enacting the Salvadoran law! Aside from your ridiculous supposition that Lacalle might have been compromising with some unspecified even more conservative group, do you have anything to say about that? Why shouldn’t I take the Salvadoran events as evidence that the RCC would do exactly the same thing in the US and elsewhere if it thought it had any chance of doing so?
OK-so can you show definitively that that slippery slope won’t be slid down by the USA?
How so? South Dakota’s new laws seem quite Draconian to me–or is this more liberal bias on my part?
Ah, but there is a “magic” moment of death. Death is defined by my Dorland’s Medical Dictionary here on my desk as: the cessation of life, permanent cessation of all vital bodily functions. For medical and legal purposes; the following definition of death has been proposed-the irreversible cessation of all of the following: 1. total cerebral function*; 2.spontaneous function of the respiratory system and 3. spontaneous function of the circulatory system.
*note the cerebral function–this signifies higher brain functions such as **Maureen ** alluded to.
I can understand and agree that “personhood” and “self-awareness” are fluid concepts (can a 3 moth infant be said to be self aware? How about a dementia sufferer?) and can be argued. I also think that it’s the best shorthand method for discussing such topics. IOW, if you want to refer to your 6 day pregnant wife as being “with child”, that is your right and perogative. It is another woman’s right and perogative to NOT refer to her status as such.
I wonder how many El Salvodoran women will be jailed and/or die due to this insane law?
Because I can point you to the precise position paper issued by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. You, on the other hand, are relying on a law passed by a lay group, the Salvadorean government, and asking me to accept the inference that this law is the best evidence of what the Catholic Church wants. I’m pointing to the actual words issued by the Catholic Church. Which of us has the better evidence?
Of course not. How can anyone definitively show the future?
The South Dakota law permits abortion when the life of the mother is in danger. The ectopic pregnanices we’re discussing here would be permitted under South Dakota law. So no, I’m afraid I don’t quite see their “draconian” nature.
True. I just wanted to make the analogy a bit better. Of course, I’d say that comparing a foetus to an adult human is flawed, but that’s because I believe a foetus is significantly less of a person than a normal adult human, so I don’t think you’d agree on that point.