Please note that this thread is in In My Humble Opinion. It is a poll.
Please note that this thread is NOT in Great Debates, where polls are not permitted. If you want to debate the subject, start a thread there.
I am looking for opinions, not debates.
I said “at birth” since that’s the first place one can expect to make it on one’s own as far as life support is concerned. The other phases are adequate for establishing “human-ness” (or whatever the latest buzzword for that is) but for my tastes, “personhood” implies an ability to function as a person as opposed to just a living being.
Other, because I think it’s sometime between implantation and viability, closed to the latter. Probably linked to brain development but I’m a bit hazy on exactly how the foetus develops.
At an arbitrarily set point sometime in the third trimester, that (in the case if serious physical defects) can be over-ruled by the mother up until actual birth.
Yeah, that’s not as clean as choosing conception or birth, but it works for me. The government does have to decide on the meaning of “serious physical defect” and set an arbitrary third trimester date. I don’t like “viability” because technological advances could make viability the same as conception. I don’t like “birth” because there’s not much physical difference between a birthed baby and a “baby” an hour away from birth. If someone kicks an extremely pregnant woman in the abdomen, killing the fetus, I think a charge of murder would be appropriate.
My wife is 36 weeks pregnant, and all I can say about this [I voted ‘Other’] is that when we saw the little tadpole at 12 weeks on an ultrasound…and it moved…we both jumped and said, “There is a little person in there!!!”.
So I’d say personhood starts in some grey area when the risk of miscarriage is next to nil and baby is growing healthily inside.
My wife and I had a stillborn child, who had reached a stage in the pregnancy to be viable, but died in the womb. Was she really a person? Should we have had a funeral for her? I don’t think so: I think personhood begins at birth. (Though I also think there should be legal protection for fetuses short of the protection that we give to persons.)
“Birth.” If it’s inside my body, attached to me, and dependent on my for its very existence, then it is not a separate person. Once it is outside my body, not attached to me, and breathing for itself, then it’s a separate person.
At viability. Really, I don’t believe there is a “correct” answer that all of us will ever agree on.
In this context, I’m definitely a “Birther.”
I probably won’t get much agreement on my view but.
I voted other, I think it should start about 3-5 years old. When speech and memory start to differentiate us from animals.
Until then we are just potential humans.
Yes I have two boys 19 and 23.
Mac.
[Mod Note]This is a very volatile subject. To make sure we can keep it in IMHO, please state your own opinions, and not argue with the opinions of other posters participating in this poll.[/Mod Note]
I always think of Bill Hick’s bit “You’re not a human 'till you’re in my phone book”.
But seriously, this is something I need to clarify myself. I have no problem at all terminating an embryo, but I have a problem with terminating a 9 month fetus about to be born. And I really have no idea where in the timespan the line should be drawn.
I’d say roughly 2 or 3 years of age.
Other: Sometime that I don’t really know between implantation and viability.
The medieval rule of thumb remains as good as any. At the quickening, between implantation and viability.
The law says “at birth,” and so do I. No fetus has ever been an heir.
I voted “other”.
I’d like say it’s after sentience or self-awareness develops. Unfortunately that’s a poorly defined concept, so there’s no bright line. Even if we could test for sentience or some neurophysiological correlate, it probably develops at different times for different people. I think we can put some bounds on when that happens though: clearly there can not be self awareness before the brain has wired up, and clearly there is self awareness when a child is capable of communicating with the outside world. So, somewhere between month 4-5 of pregnancy and age 2.
Absent some magical way of determining if a particular infant is sentient, I’m content with drawing the line at either viability or birth.
I don’t feel qualified to make this decision, and I don’t believe most other people are either. But my WAG would put it somewhere at least at viability. Pre-viability just doesn’t seem to qualify.
At the first possible moment it can survive outside the womb. Meaning birth. Until then, a fetus is just a parasite. A desirable parasite, usually, but still. Until birth, a baby is nothing more than an extension of the mother.
When he has a job, his own place, and pays his own bills…
Somewhere between 18 and 50?
