The Unborn Are Persons From Fertilization

Thank you, KeytarHero, for being willing to Debate this topic. Note to all: Links I include will begin "ht... ", so the web site software won't damage them. Copy the link-string to a blank web page and replace the initial dots with appropriate/normal web-address characters. Let me start by agreeing that the concept of "person" is one that has indeed been misused at various times and places. The reason it *can* be misused is because it is a construct of the Law, and not something that is as easy to define as, say, a rock (more on that later). As a result, many business corporations have the status of "persons", despite the fact that they are social constructs, not biological organisms. And, of course, if the Law is changed.... It might be noted that a variety of entities are currently disqualified, per the Law, from personhood. Unborn humans are on that list, which is why this Debate exists. But also on that list are many ordinary animals, from mites to bears, and all plants, fungi, bacteria, viruses, and machines. After reviewing Pro's argument, I think I can conclude that its foundation is simply this: "human = person". Details don't matter. Logically, if there is any flaw in that equation, then details *will* matter. Well, does the equation work both ways ("person = human")? What about corporations? Let us ignore those, since all known corporations consist of humans working together as a group, behind the *overall* label of "person". How about the realm of speculative literature? If it is possible to *imagine* that some sort of non-human might qualify as a person, then is there any reason to think such could *never* exist for real? So, here is an abbreviated list: 1. "E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial", as portrayed in a movie. Clearly non human. In the movie, human children who interacted with that entity wasted little time deciding it was something more than just an animal. What criteria did they use, to reach that decision? 2. In the fictional realms of "Star Wars" and "Star Trek", very many non-human entities are portrayed as interacting on a fully equal basis with humans. It seems obvious that the *default* assumption of those realms is rather different from the equation "person = human". I will use the phrase "person-class" to refer to non-humans that are described in such a way that they likely qualify for genuine-person status. A particularly unusual person-class entity, in the Original Star Trek show "Metamorphosis", is described as being "made of simple electricity" (not just non-biological, but non-molecular!). 3. Dragons, variously. In China dragons are wise beings, definitely person-class, while in the West they are often portrayed as being merely beasts, with some exceptions (see the movie "Dragonheart"). Some stories describe them as being *both* --that is, the dragons themselves consider their own youngsters to be no more than animals, until after they've lived and grown for perhaps a couple hundred years. 4. The Martians of Robert A. Heinlein's books, "Stranger in a Strange Land" and "Red Planet" are being listed here specifically because of their reproductive biology. They are "R-strategists"; they produce many offspring at a time, which are released into "the wild" and mostly allowed to die. They *know* that their offspring are not person-class, and don't become person-class until after they do a significant amount of growing in the wild (if they survive). Meanwhile, humans are "K-strategists" who have relatively few offspring, and provide each with a lot of protective care. A relevant link: ht..../en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory 5. Ents, from "The Lord of the Rings" tales, are portrayed as interacting in a person-class way, even though their biology is plant-based, so they have a natural preference for doing things slowly, most of the time. It might be noted that most plants do "R-strategy" reproduction (and most of their seeds get eaten). 6. Before modern science figured out what viruses actually were, but after they were discovered, there was an opportunity for writers to speculate about them wildly. One of the resulting novels is a classic, "Needle", by Hal Clement. It assumed that viruses could act like cells, and that, cooperating as ordinary cells do, person-class organisms could evolve into existence. Such an organism could be quite small because its component "cells" were so extremely small. The science is now known to be faulty, but the concept of "person" was certainly stretched. 7. Molecule-sized person-class entities were imagined in the book "Dragon's Egg", by Robert L. Forward. Their bodies were made of "degenerate matter"; they lived on the surface of a neutron star, and their physical-body energy sources were of nuclear magnitude, not chemical. Science has not yet ruled out the possibility that such organisms might exist. A link: ht..../en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerate_matter 8. "The Bicentennial Man", a movie based on a story by Isaac Asimov, is about a robot that seeks person status --and earns it. 9. God must be non-human because God is supposed to have existed before humans began to exist. So, if God qualifies as (at least!) a person-class entity, then that proves that not even a physical body, much less a human body, is needed for personhood to exist. From the preceding it should be possible to conclude that the equation "person = human" is *very* *probably* flawed. Therefore two primary options appear to logically follow: 1. We can make a list, something like: "human = person", "E.T.-species = persons", "Yoda-species = persons", "Klingon = person", .... It would include actual not fictional species, of course, and we would have to scour the whole Universe to make the list complete, and it could end up being a very long list. 2. We can generalize the concept of "person". What qualities do persons of *any* type possess, that distinguish them from ordinary animals and plants? Well, the details can wait; let's focus on the consequences. For the second option, it is quite logical that any organism failing to possess the generic qualities of personhood *can't* be anything more than a "mere plant" or a "mere animal". And "failing organisms" could very well include many growth stages of the offspring of persons, *especially* shortly after fertilization, when it consists of just a few biological cells (or equivalent). Abortion opponents won't like that, so they'll probably prefer option #1, despite the amount of work it will entail to create that list. That's because, for *almost* any species on the list, "details won't matter", and killing offspring at any growth stage could be prohibited. "almost"? Yes; that is why the reproductive "R-strategy" was mentioned above. Just *one* person-class species, anywhere in the Universe, employing R-strategy reproduction, would "plug into" Pro's argument this way (call it "species-R"): 1. From fertilization, the preborn are biological members of species-R. 2. All members of species-R are intrinsically valuable based on the kind of thing that they are, species-R. We can stop there. Remember than when an R-strategist breeds, hundreds or even thousands of offspring can result (oysters can manage hundreds *of* thousands). Is it in any way *possible* for R-strategist parents to provide K-strategy care for that quantity of "intrinsically valuable" offspring??? I formally invite you to think about the Law of Supply and Demand, and remember that "price" relates to "valuation": ht..../en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_supply_and_demand Pro's argument is fundamentally flawed because the mere *claim* that something is intrinsically valuable needs to be proved, and he hasn't done it. And if he can't prove it, then that means the offspring of *any* person-class species can actually be arbitrarily valued. The conclusion of his argument then becomes invalid due to Bad Logic.