toldailytopic: Objectively, when does a person become a person? At conception? Or at

[Seydlitz77]

toldailytopic: Objectively, when does a person become a person? At conception? Or at some other point after conception?

This question can't be answered objectively and its really sticking in my craw that people use questions like these to try and argue against all reasons for abortion.

Sure life begins at conception but does that constitute a person? If a body has a heartbeat and is breathing but there is no brain activity are they still a person or is the person gone while the body continues? If it can happen at the end of our mortal life can it not happen at the beginning? Can there be body but not person in the womb for a time? I do believe that at some point in the womb there is a person as any pregnant women will tell you a child can and does react to external stimuli while within the womb but we can't definitively or objectively name a point at which life becomes personhood.

To set the record straight I am completely against elective abortions, or abortions done because a woman does not want the inconvenience of carrying a child, and I believe that the best means to combat such abortions is to teach and encourage women that the child can be adopted into a good family that will take care of them. I am also aware that there sensitive situations in which a woman's life is in extreme risk during the pregnancy and the child cannot yet survive outside of the womb, in such situations a difficult decision has to be made to either face the risk of losing both lives or saving the mother. I believe that in such situations families must consult carefully with doctors, spiritual leaders and God if desired and the decision should not be made rashly. Whichever decision that couple arrives at however is justified and we should not pass judgement. It irks me that many Canadian groups pressuring the government right now want to make this reason for abortion just as illegal as elective abortions. I hope to never live in a country where a husband is legally denied even the capacity to choose to save his Wife's life.

Sorry if that's a bit of a rant, I really get upset when people try and act like this is a black and white issue.

 

[Nathon Detroit]

Right now though I'm a little taken aback by the reaction, honestly.

Good.

 

[Nathon Detroit]

See a protracted discussion of this very question here.



Gaudium de veritate,

Cruciform
+T+

That's great and all but why don't you at least add your opinion here on the Topic of the Day? It's more fun when we have conversations without having to jump to another thread just to see what your opinion is. :up:

 

[Nick M]

Personhood begins when we can detect either a heart beat or brain waves. That's all.

How about this. Watching shows about life and conception not produced by us (religous right), they call it fetus and other wierd names. Zygote. Whatever. They claimed as soon as the sperm hit the egg, electrical signals are sent through it, and it has its own codes. And those codes start the process immediately.

Is that not independent life?

 

[Cruciform]

That's great and all but why don't you at least add your opinion here on the Topic of the Day? It's more fun when we have conversations without having to jump to another thread just to see what your opinion is. :up:

Oh, right. Sorry. I would contend that:

• human personhood is a status possessed by every living human being.
• There is a living human being at conception.
• Therefore, personhood---like life, humanity, and existence (being)---begins at conception.

Gaudium de veritate,

Cruciform
+T+

 

[Real Sorceror]

How about this. Watching shows about life and conception not produced by us (religous right), they call it fetus and other wierd names. Zygote. Whatever. They claimed as soon as the sperm hit the egg, electrical signals are sent through it, and it has its own codes. And those codes start the process immediately.

Is that not independent life?

Granite and I have already stated that zygotes are alive. The life part exists before conception. No one here is debating that, nor has it ever been an issue.

 

[Town Heretic]

Do mentally handicapped people deserve right's as a person?

So you're appealing to his self interest?

It was either that or can an atheist vote?

I kid because...sometimes it's either that or a good long cry. lain:

 

[Cruciform]

Granite and I have already stated that zygotes are alive. The life part exists before conception. No one here is debating that, nor has it ever been an issue.

If this is intended to signify egg and sperm, it should be noted that while these are living cells, the zygote is a living human being. Big difference there.



Gaudium de veritate,

Cruciform
+T+

 

[eph39]

Since DNA is now commonly used to legally establish the identity of individual persons, how about:

A person becomes a person the moment DNA is demonstrably distinct from both parents.

Solved. Next problem.

 

[Strefanash]

I submit that there is probably in fact, and certainly in practicality, no objective answer to this question that can be reached. For it requires philosophical presupposition to even have a point of view on the matter. And once the presupposition is clear this question becomes a stick to beat the other side with.

a pointless debate.

I am not a woman, will not have a wife at my stage of life, or even, had I the will to, the opportunity to spawn illegitimate issue.

So the question is none of my business.

How much debate would there be if we actually obeyed the Bible about minding our own business and kept out of debates that were none of ours?

 

[Real Sorceror]

I submit that there is probably in fact, and certainly in practicality, no objective answer to this question that can be reached. For it requires philosophical presupposition to even have a point of view on the matter. And once the presupposition is clear this question becomes a stick to beat the other side with.

a pointless debate.

I am not a woman, will not have a wife at my stage of life, or even, had I the will to, the opportunity to spawn illegitimate issue.

So the question is none of my business.

How much debate would there be if we actually obeyed the Bible about minding our own business and kept out of debates that were none of ours?

Maybe pointless for you, but it's certainly an important question to ask for those of us who aren't Christian. And it's of even greater importance when making laws concerning the subject.

 

[MrRadish]

I will not agree to NOT stigmatize evil and wicked comments. It's thought's like yours that give rise to horrible genocide and other human atrocities.

Your idea's on this subject should be mocked, rebuked, and shunned. Seriously, the stuff you are saying on this thread is pure evil.

What's the point in opening a discussion if you're not prepared to discuss?

 

[oatmeal]

Genesis 2:7

At the first breath Adam became a living soul.

What does it mean when someone takes their last breath?

oatmeal

 

[Quincy]

I've got it as with conception. I'm notorious for not supporting interrupting the course of nature, with things like abortion, war, etc etc.

 

[Quincy]

Genesis 2:7

At the first breath Adam became a living soul.

What does it mean when someone takes their last breath?

oatmeal

They're a dead soul badum-ching :drum:

 

[Statisticus]

But even those of us who are not Christian might take some interest in maintaining Western Civilization. Efforts to redefine "person" as "sentience" or some other ill-defined term overlook the historical fact that the nature of "person" was worked out in Late Antiquity. Persona originally referred to the actor's mask, but was extended by synechdoche to the role performed, and then extended analogously to any character in the play of life: that is, "an individual human being."

Hence, the objective determination of personhood must verify three things:
1. Does it have being, i..e., existence? This can be verified objectively by identifying physical matter in which persona is instantiated; for example, a cell or a mainframe or an energy flux. However, we know only the first sort.
2. Is it human, i.e., an instantiation of H. sap. or similar species? This can be verified with DNA tests.
3. Is it an individual; i.e., distinct from other humans and subsistent in itself? This can also be tested in two stages:
a) is the DNA distinct from other humans? And
b) does it comprise a self-organizing (emergent) system? (This latter is what is meant by the old term subsistent; hence, Individua substantia significat: substantia, completa, per se subsistens, et separata ab aliia. Thus, for example, a fingernail or elbow is not completa but is rather part of an organism and does not subsist per se, that is, as its own self-organizing system. That is why biology distinguishes between organs and organisms.

Notes
A. "or similar species": Naturæ rationalis individua substantia. An individual substance of a rational nature needn't be biologically human. Could be space aliens from Alpha Prime. In Late Antiquity, Augustine cheerfully extended personhood to all sorts of aliens said to exist in remote regions of the earth - centaurs, sciopods, blemyae, et al. - "if they existed"; the test being their rational nature.
B. "rational nature" can be misunderstood by Late Moderns, since the concept of natures has been discarded. An analogy may serve: humans are "by nature" bipedal, and this remains true even if they are born without a leg or lose one in an accident or if at some stage of normal development they do not yet have legs. See note on general relativity.
C. "completa." General relativity tells us that time is simply another dimension and that whatever entity we perceive just now is only a three-dimensional cross section of a four-dimensional entity. That is, just as the being is continuously connected head to toe, so too is it connected beginning to end as all one organism. Thus, the fertilized ovum is like the tip of a triangle and the present-time being is the base. The height is the time-line. It is as silly to claim that the zygotic stage is not part of the whole being as to claim that her left big toe is not part of her. The only difference is that we can see the spatial continuity all at once in a way that we cannot see the temporal continuity. In exactly the same manner, the [fertilized] acorn is the oak tree, just as the sapling is the oak tree. The morphogenesis of plants is often more dramatic than that of animals; but think of the caterpillar and the butterfly: two stages of the same being.
+ + + +

 

[Statisticus]

Regarding other comments:
personhood begins when we can detect either a heart beat or brain waves. That's all. I haven't commented on the definition of personhood once.

This is precisely the problem. Without a notion of personhood, the heart beat is evidence only of a heart beat. If you cannot say what a person is, how can you possibly know that a heart beat indicates its beginning? You may as well say that a heartbeat signified the beginning of angki.(*) You have not made it clear whether heart beat or brain wave (which is it to be) is a consequence of person or a cause of it. If the latter, then Knight is correct and the surgeon who suspends the heart has taken away the person. If the former then in what way does the personhood of Jane Doe depend on your ability to detect one of its effects? Can you say that it is the first effect or only the first one that you have become aware of? I am always uneasy when the personhood of A depends on the opinion of B.
+ + +
Brain wave patterns can indicate higher cognitive function, a key sign of personhood. Higher brain function is linked with just about all of the other signs of personhood, like sense of self and the ability to communicate.
Personhood is dependent upon higher thoughts patterns and cognitive function.
Even a newborn infant isn't a person. They can't communicate, and in their first few months of life they can't even recognize themselves in a mirror.

In what manner does the definition of 'person' entail all these additional requirements? Why should not the definition of 'person' require the ability to do elementary differential calculus? If we stick a rag in your mouth such that you cannot communicate do you cease to be a person? What if you fall asleep and cannot summon your "higher thoughts patterns and cognitive function" do you cease to be a person for the duration of your slumber?

Sometimes it seems that these ad hoc definitions-of-convenience are never thought through to their implications and suffer from built-in incoherence.
+ + +
A fetus has almost none of these features and a zygote doesn't have any at all.

As mentioned above, the tip of a relativistic light cone is not the same as the cross sectional are of its base "at present." But it is still part of the cone. If your loss of faculties in slumber do not extinguish the person, why should any other period of privation imply its lack?
+ + +
We can argue about sentience and souls all day, but human life is factual and valuable.
I do not believe a fetus has a soul

The Latin term translated into English as "soul" is anima, which means simply "alive" or "animate." To ask "Does X have a soul?" is to ask "Is X alive?" This can be verified objectively, allowing for the limits of our ability to detect life. The soul is not a separate substance added to the body, but is the subsistent form of the body; the body "in motion" as it were. If basketballs were alive, "sphere" would be its soul; i.e., the form that makes it what it is.
+ + +

(*) angki. A Tamil word அங்கி, meaning "one who has a body, a person."

 

[Nick M]

Granite and I have already stated that zygotes are alive. The life part exists before conception. No one here is debating that, nor has it ever been an issue.

:up:

Which is why I pointed out seperate genetic codes. Does that make it a person to you?

 

[Cruciform]

Which is why I pointed out seperate genetic codes. Does that make it a person to you?

Also, see Post #88 above.



Gaudium de veritate,

Cruciform
+T+

 

[oatmeal]

They're a dead soul badum-ching :drum:

Exactly!

oatmeal