Personhood and Abortion

For anyone who has watched the Silent Scream video, it is obvious enough that at no point in the pregnancy is there a radical change in the state of the body. Certainly, there is a radical difference from the unborn child at the moment of conception than at the moment before birth. Yet, at no two proximate points in the pregnancy does any radical change occur. The change is entirely gradual.

The first position ultimately "fails" in, and I'm going with Nietzsche here, in a sort of false causality. The body doesn't cause consciousness. Consciousness causes the bodily signs. The major flaw of the first position is that it presupposes a material view of consciousness. It falls apart the moment you think that consciousness may precede the state of the body, and only is able to inform the body at a certain point.

The second position is ultimately doomed to fail insofar as there is no real difference between the state of the child the moment it is born from the moment after.

This issue has nothing to do with how we define personhood or consciousness, and the way you frame the issue seems contrived.

It has only to do with how we define murder. And since our society of laws is what defines murder and not our individual philosophical inklings, its perfectly fine for us to be arbitrary as long as we're consistent.

And you miss one major position to have about abortion, and that is one of viability. Elective abortions are almost uniformly illegal before the fetus has reached the potential for extrauterine viability.

The problem is that people who make deontologic arguments against abortion, and use the principle of personhood as their bedrock, utterly ignore a DIFFERENT aspect of our nature as persons. And that aspect is one of autonomy over self and one's own body. And it's a lot easier to be prescriptive for other people about point 1 and be dismissive of point 2 -- until it's your own body (or that of a loved one) that's in question.

There is no radical change at any point in anyone's life, yet we do not subject other drivers from the dangers of sharing the road with six year olds. The fact that there is no exact moment where someone gains absolute rights of personhood does not preclude us from saying that someone does or doesn't have these rights.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

You have drastically misinterpreted Nietzsche (at least in my opinion, an amateur like me could error greatly in interpreting Nietzsche).

At this point I ask you, what possible reason could we have for believing that mental states precede physical states. All documented evidence points to mental states (as far as they exist) superceding upon physical states.

Why should we suspend all evidence and reason and believe that we have a consciousness not dependent upon the state of the body, especially when said belief is used to justify the subjugation of the rights of another person?

There is a drastic difference in the medical state of the pregnant woman before and after, and despite your protestations, you no doubt take her health into consideration.

I have no time for nonsensical Aristotelian arguments of the form of a person. There is no person until the body can support it, I don't care a bit for potentiality.

Your point of view is acknowledged.

It's not the only way to look at things.

Personhood is a metaphysical attribute, and it is not synonymous with being a living biological human organism.

If we are to synonymize other metaphysical and moral ideas with biology, then our entire moral structure will collapse. It will overturn every moral philosopher in history, it will overturn every religious moral law in history, and morality will be only as good as the next scientific publication.

This issue has nothing to do with how we define personhood or consciousness, and the way you frame the issue seems contrived.

It has only to do with how we define murder. And since our society of laws is what defines murder and not our individual philosophical inklings, its perfectly fine for us to be arbitrary as long as we're consistent.

And you miss one major position to have about abortion, and that is one of viability. Elective abortions are almost uniformly illegal before the
fetus has reached the potential for extrauterine viability.

I think that every person has an understanding of murder which is intrinsict to his nature as a human person. No man thinks that it's ok intentionally to kill an innocent human person.

I neither know what you are talking about, nor what it has to do with what I'm talking about.

The problem is that people who make deontologic arguments against abortion, and use the principle of personhood as their bedrock, utterly ignore a DIFFERENT aspect of our nature as persons. And that aspect is one of autonomy over self and one's own body. And it's a lot easier to be prescriptive for other people about point 1 and be dismissive of point 2 -- until it's your own body (or that of a loved one) that's in question.

Driving isn't a right. It's commonly accepted that the guidelines for driving are social constructs. I don't think very many people will (consistently) argue that personhood is purely a social construct.

Nor, in fact, can any good American believe that every right is a social construct:

It seems to me (as it apparently did to the Founding Fathers) that certain rights are intrinsic to the human person, the chiefmost of which is the right not to be murdered.

I don't think that the evidence conclusively demonstrates that mental states are dependent on physical states, strictly speaking. The evidence merely points to physical states influencing how mental states are signaled by the body.

This is what I am saying:

You have A as a rational soul. Rational soul wants to convey anger...but remember the old addage: "Whatever is received is received according to the mode of the receiver (quidquid recipitur secundum modum receporis recipitur (sp?))." Body is not fit to receive the expression of anger which the rational soul wants to convey.

I fail to see how the evidence points to one interpretation any more than the other. If I am right and you are wrong, then the same data could certainly hold true, but you have indeed confused the effect for a cause.

This is just my point, though: the evidence and reason are not, in fact, pointing to what materialists think that they are.

Furthermore, suppose I'm right. Then the rights of another person are being subjugated still, except that the subjugation of rights is drastic: the very right to live is being taken away.

I don't. I fail to see why it matters.

This is the point, though: it's not a matter of "potentiality." From the moment of conception, there is an actual human person. The materialists have confused substance and accidents (in the Catholic use of the terminology, as generally found used to describe the Eucharist). The accidents (the data of sense perception) may be of an unformed material body. But the substance (the quiddity, the essence of the thing) is not an unformed material body. The substance is humanity, and not only humanity, but this particular person.

If you believe abortion is murder, what makes murder wrong? It can't just be based on 'life' since it's not illegal to step on a bug? What makes killing a person wrong (if you do believe its wrong)?

Great question. Simply redefining what is a person to something arbitrary doesn't make abortion immoral, it simply means that it may be ok to kill a person.

Then Judas, who betrayed him, seeing that he was condemned, repenting himself, brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and ancients, Saying: I have sinned in betraying innocent blood. But they said: What is that to us? look thou to it. And casting down the pieces of silver in the temple, he departed: and went and hanged himself with an halter.

Besides the point.

My point was that we do not need a definitive justifiable point at which to protect, grant, or deny rights.

I can punch you and you can report what it feels like to be punched. The physical is shown to be effectual on the mental. This is simple.

Show a manner in which we can test the existence of a mental substance without a physical substance for it to manifest itself through.

Not at all if the fetus is not yet viable.

The pregnant woman possesses all of the rights of personhood that you wish to give the fetus.

What possible reason should I have for accepting this mysticism?

Aristotle and the Scholastics well establish that the unborn child from the moment of conception (even if they didn't know it at the time) is a human person.

We didn't talk much about Scholasticism when I was in medical school, but to the degree I learned human biology there, we mainly regarded this as a human organism.

Now without resorting to the logical mechanics of philosophers who predate ANY understanding of human biology, tell me why a fertilized egg MUST be synonymous with HUMAN PERSON.

Because the personhood of the person lies in the soul. A person comes into being when the soul is united with the body.

Personhood continues on after it departs from the body.

The soul logically precedes the body.