X-Vmsmail-To: SMTP%"CATHOLIC@AMERICAN.EDU"
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.catholic
Date:         Thu, 17 Dec 1992 09:42:48 -0500
From:         URSIC@ASTRO.CS.HH.AB.COM
Subject:      Re: Moral Activity (was Re: Asylum)

john ocallaghan <jocallag@VYASA.HELIOS.ND.EDU> writes:
>However legislation designating them as such would make them legal persons.

Yes, if the legislation explicitly states that a fetus or even a spotted owl,
for that matter, was a "person", then indeed that "subject" would be a
legal person. I guess I missed your original point.

>Why do you say at birth?  Because that is when the umbilical cord is
>cut?  If I remember my biology correctly, the umbilical cord, as well as
>the placenta, is genetically identical to the child, not the mother.

I suggested birth because at that point there is a "separate" individual.
If you were to receive a kidney transplant, would you consider that
new kidney a part of you, even if it were genetically different?
So whether it is one organ, or a whole "body" of organs, it still can
be viewed as part of the person it is contained within. Siamese twins
and leeches are "external" cases, they can be viewed as one "biological"
unit while attached together.
Maybe it comes down to the point where if they were unattached, they
could survive (commonly called "viability") that one becomes an
individual 'whatever'.

>  Further
>the actual physical development of the child, from very early on, if not
>immediately at conception proceeds according to biological principles within
>the foetus, not the mother.  The mother provides the raw material of
>oxygen and nourishment which the foetus incorporates into its organism
>according to principles within it.

Agreed, now let's get to the "individual" issue:-)

>  But if dependence upon another for raw material
>such as oxygen or nourishment means that one is not an individual then a child
>five minutes after having its umbilical cord cut is no more a person than is
>the child in the womb.  Nor for that matter are most of us who are quite
>physically dependent upon others for most of the raw necessities which we
>incorporate into our organisms on the supposition that they are made
>available to us.

Agreed, dependence upon another for raw materials does not disqualify something
as an "individual" something.

>Considering the fact that a day old baby is just as physically dependent
>upon someone else, if not the mother, for providing it with the basic
>raw necessities of food and water, why is it an individual?

That day old baby is surviving as an independent biological "unit", it
is no longer part of the mother's biological system. So, to me, there
is a difference between physically dependent and biologically dependent.
What this has to do with "legal" person, I don't know:-)
I guess we could line up in court a sperm cell, a zygote, an embryo, a fetus,
a baby, a child, an adolescent, an adult, and whatever else stage I might have
missed and decide which one qualify as a "legal" person. All of them are
human and at any one moment could be independent biological individuals
(some with very short lifespans:-).

>>Not necessarily so, see above -J.J.
>Not necessarily so, see above.

Sorry, missed your original point:-) -J.J.