From: sa114984@longs.lance.colostate.edu (Steven Arnold)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: The origin of individual human beings
Date: 9 Oct 92 00:38:51 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO  80523

In article <1992Oct7.200009.14524@ncar.ucar.edu>, kauff@neit.cgd.ucar.edu (Brian Kauffman) writes:
|> >|> >  = sa114984@longs.lance.colostate.edu (Steven Arnold) writes:
|> >|>    = kauff@neit.cgd.ucar.edu (Brian Kauffman) writes:
|> >      = sa114984@longs.lance.colostate.edu (Steven Arnold) writes:
|> >|> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
|> >|> > Conception is the first time that a human individual is
|> >|> > created, an individual who will, if not killed, eventually grow
|> >|> > into an adult human.  At no time prior to conception is this the
|> >|> > case, and at no time after.  {...]
|> 
|> >|> You have a concept referred to as "human life", and for you this
|> >|> refers to any f/e/z from conception onward.  OK, fine.  But so what?
|> >|> This is an *extremely* broad definition, encompassing zygotes, embryos,
|> >|> late-term fetus', infants, grown adults, brain-dead adults, physically
|> >|> brainless fetus', sentient human beings, non-sentient human beings,...  
|> >|> This definition is so broad that two things correctly categorized as 
|> >|> "human life" may very well have almost nothing in common.
|> 
|> >	A member of the human species, medically speaking, is created at
|> >conception and continues until death.  ALL human beings have at least that 
|> >much in common: they are all of the same species, not of different species.
|> >	Of course, the medical fact that unborn children are human beings 
|> >does not establish that they have human rights, but it is my contention that 
|> >they should be recognized as having such rights.
|> >
|> >	First, I maintain that there are some characteristics which certainly
|> >prove personhood, like apparent awareness, ability to learn, communication.  
|> >Any of these, and probably a great many other characteristics, would prove
|> >personhood.  But I also argue that the absence of any or all of these
|> >characteristics does not therefore necessarily DISPROVE personhood.  
|> 
|> That may not be true.  "Person" has no official definition, it means 
|> different things to different people.

	Quite right, and this is a difficulty.  We must have some common method
of determining who is a person, or else I can decide that people whose first_name
= Brian don't count as persons.

|>  To me it means "anything that
|> is in essence the same as a normal, born human" (a subset of human life).  

	This is wonderfully vague (as you admit below).  I could
interpret the above definition to include all human beings, born or
not, thinking or not, by simply saying that thinking is an
occasional and peripheral by-product of being a mature human being,
not an essential or necessary characteristic of any class of human
beings.  In any class you care to mention (except for one: the class
of human beings who are thinking), there is bound to be one or more
human beings in that class who are NOT thinking at any particular
moment.

|> The rationale for my definition of "person" is that, because by definition
|> all "persons" are in essence the same, common, intuitive statements like "all 
|> persons should be treated alike" or "all persons should have equal rights" 
|> remain true.  On the other hand, given overly broad definitions of "person",
|> these simple statements become confused as we muse over the widely varying
|> possibilities of what type of "person" we are referring to.

	Yet I think it is better to include a few non-persons in the
class of persons than to exclude a few persons from that class. 
Obviously, this can't be taken too far, but as a rule of thumb it's
a good idea.

|> >  So there are some persons who cannot be objectively identified as persons.
|> 
|> According to *my* definition of "person", this is true.  
|> I would say all "human life" fall into three categories:
|> 1) those that are definitely "persons"      (eg. normal, born persons)
|> 2) those that are definitely NOT "persons"  (eg. zygotes)
|> 3) those for whom "personhood" is ambiguous (eg. a 24 week old fetus,  or 

	According to my definition (actually I don't have one; I'm
merely using an operational definition):
	1) all non-humans are non-persons unless they show some
definite provable quality of personhood, in which case their entire
species must be regarded as persons.
	2) all humans are either definitely persons or ambiguously
persons.  But since some human beings are regarded as persons, and
since personhood cannot be positively disproved, all human beings
ought to be regarded as persons.

|> ------------------
|> >  But, once persons have been identified in a given species, we know that
|> > many members of that species may be persons even though no outward sign can 
|> > prove the proposition.  [...]  Therefore, I conclude, we ought to recognize 
|> > the personhood of the unborn.
|> 
|> I disagree.  Because there is ambiguity about the "personhood" of *some*
|> human beings, does not imply there is ambiguity about *all* human beings.
|> Indeed, if a physical brain is a requirement of "personhood" (a reasonable
|> requirement), then a zygote is unambiguously NOT a "person".

	A physical brain is not a necessary requirement of
personhood.  You may not be religious, but can you conceive of a
spirit-like being, with no brain as such, but still aware?  Who
knows?  Maybe the Christians are right; maybe there is a spirit of
some sort attached to the zygote, a being which is indisputably
aware and indisputably a person.  I'm not saying it's true, but then
I can't disprove it either.  The fact is, I just don't know.  But I
do know that some human beings are certainly persons and I don't
feel justified in establishing my own arbitrarily-established
dividing line.  And you shouldn't feel justified either; you aren't.

|> ------------------
|> > I admit that I do not know exactly what is necessary and sufficient for
|> >personhood, and I argue that you don't know either.  If you set personhood 
|> >at a certain level of awareness, I ask why you should be able to set the 
|> >level and not me.  What makes you special?  But if nobody can set the level,
|> >then all human beings must be included in the set of persons, as I suggest.
|> 
|> I don't consider myself special enough to tell you exactly who is, 
|> and who isn't, a "person", in fact, I'm not always sure myself.  
|> However I've noticed that *you*, on the other hand, are bold enough 
|> to suggest that "all human beings must be included in the set of persons".

	I'm saying they must be included precisely because we do not
and cannot know where the dividing line is.

Steve

Why settle for the lesser evil?
	Cthulhu in '92
Newsgroups: talk.abortion,alt.abortion.inequity