From: parker@ehsn17.cen.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: Human Worth in Unborn
Date: 15 Oct 92 23:04:45 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana

"Andrea B. Gansley-Ortiz" <ag1v+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:

>Excerpts from netnews.talk.abortion: 8-Oct-92 Re: No Human Worth in
>Unbor.. by Larry Margolis@watson.ib 
>> > So you think those human creatures who are postconceived but not yet
>> > born have no human worth?
>>  
>> Bingo - they're not people, and so are not entitled to the valuation
>> we give to people.  They might be *potential* people, but that doesn't
>> entitle them to anything until they realize that potential.

>I don't understand this argument of potential people. Someone else
>tried to explain it to me. But I just don't get it. 

>ag

Let me attempt to explain it.  I don't really like the term "potential person",
so I won't use it, but it's the same basic idea as this:

The argument is rooted in an analysis of what we *mean* when we say "person"
(or "people").  Now some people equate "person" with "human being", but the two
terms are *not* necessarily the same.  I will assume that you don't have any
preconceptions that "human being"=="person" without qualification (and you may
assume that I *do* place *some* value on human life in *your* arguments).

"person" is related to "personality".  A "personality" is a trait that any
normal "person" has.  One could assert that something that does not have a
"personality" is not a "person".  (One could also assert that there are many
living things that do seem to have a "personality" that we would not consider
to be "people", such as dogs, cats, and so on.  Apparently having a
"personality" is a necessary--but not sufficent--condition of being a "person".)

There is a little more to being a "person" than having a "personality"; a
"person" also has a memory of past experiences (not necessarily complete in all
details) and has an awareness of life.  (Being alive and aware does not imply
an awareness of "life".  We all know that we are alive; most animals do not, I
assert.)

I will assert that it is *fundamentally* wrong to kill a "person".  Killing an
animal may be bad, but it is not "wrong" in the same sort of way, because we
consider "people" to be more important than "non-people".  It is not absolutely
illegal to kill an animal (in general--there are exceptions in the case of
endangered species, etc).  I claim that this belief is because we don't really
consider animals to be "people".  As an asside, I claim that the belief that
killing an individual animal (a pet dog perhaps) that is well known is wrong,
is because of the assignment of a certain amount of "personity" (like humanity)
to that animal.  "Rover" is your friend and is thus worth more than the wild
dog that is raiding your chickens.  (Have I lost you yet?)

With that all assumed, I now assert that an unborn child does not have a
"personality" in the sense that a "person" does.  We characterize an unborn
child as an "active baby" or whatever due to actions of the child in the womb.
We even call this a "personality" (perhaps).  However, it is no more meaningful
that the "personality" we describe in our favorite pet.  There is no
(scientific) reason to believe that an unborn child is responding in a certain
way due to an intelligent interpretation of its environment.  An unborn child
can feel pain and will try to avoid it in some way.  Any "animal" (vertibrates
at least) does as much.  (Giving pain to animals is also bad, but not in the
same way that killing a "person" is bad.)

This assertion stems from the fact that the unborn child is in a very sheltered
environment.  They do not *see* other things interact and learn from it.  They
do not *hear* the words of other humans in order to analyze them into a form
of verbal communication.  They do not *taste* their food and analyze it as
being good or bad to eat.  They do not have the sort of complex sensory input
that is necessary for the development of an intelligent memory.  Even when
their brain is fully capable of the level of use that a (born) baby's is, it is
not engaged in that use because they are sheltered from any meaningful negative
inputs.  (One does not start to *learn* until there is a pressure to do so to
deal with a negative environment; this applies to animals as well.)

It takes the traumatic event of birth (if you don't remember how traumatic your
birth was, it's probably because you are repressing the memory!  ;) and the
injection into a complicated (and dangerous) environment of the ouside world
to start the analytic process we call "intelligence".  Only then does the
child gain a "soul" (in the agnostic sense, NOT the religious sense) that has
a right not to be extinguished.  It is this aspect of being a "person" that
those who are pro-abortion (a subset of the pro-choice?) feel a strong
obligation to protect, not human life itself.

In summary, although an unborn child is a living human being, and although we
ascribe certain traits that we call "personality", the unborn child does not
have the sort of "personality" that "people" have--which comes from the
subconscious (or conscious) analysis of a complex environment containing both
positive an negative experiences *and* from the drive to interact with other
"people" in an exchange of strategies (and other things) gained from those
experiences (and those of others).  (animals do the first--and to a certain
extent the second as well, though not to the extend that adult humans (and even
(born) children) do)  Thus we conclude that killing an unborn child (even at
the point shortly before labor) is not as fundamentally "wrong" as killing an
adult or (born) child would be.

Whether or not you agreed with the whole argument, that is basically (my
interpretation of) the idea of a "potential person" which is used to justify
(some?) abortions.  For the record, I feel that "late" abortions are bad; but
I also feel that needless killing of dogs and cats and most other animals is
bad.  (No, I'm not a vegetarian though...killing for food can be a legitimate
need, even if other posibilites exist.)

--Rob

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    "A person is an I.I.I.I."  -myself
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