Are unborn humans more deserving of legal personhood than corporations?

@amist,

amist;126116 wrote:

If Sartre didn't say it then I'll quote Heidegger on it. We come from nothingness, are thrown into the world, exist in the world for a time, and then return to nothingness.

Irrelevant, see 'categorical imperative'

Please tell me why I should treat a zygote the same as a person.

You call what I wrote irrelevant and then you redirect to categorical imperative...Yawn...Whatever dude...

Please tell me why I should treat a one month old the same as a person.

2 Replies

@Deckard,

Deckard;126120 wrote:

You call what I wrote irrelevant and then you redirect to categorical imperative...Yawn...Whatever dude...

Please tell me why I should treat a one month old the same as a person.

Persons have certain rights in the law. One month old children have certain rights in the law. Therefore, one month old children are persons.

1 Reply

@Deckard,

Deckard;126120 wrote:

You call what I wrote irrelevant and then you redirect to categorical imperative...Yawn...Whatever dude...

Please tell me why I should treat a one month old the same as a person.

Sorry to ask this but do you see a one month old in the same category as a zygote. You feel they should have the same rights?

1 Reply

@Deckard,

Quote:

Persons have certain rights in the law. One month old children have certain rights in the law. Therefore, one month old children are persons.

This assumes that whoever wrote the law did their philosophy correctly in defining personhood.

"Please tell me why I should treat a one month old the same as a person."

I've explained this ad absurdum. Go back and read my other posts if you don't get it this time, because I'm not going to explain it again.

You are a person and alive if you have a consciousness and that consciousness is attached to a human subject. Human consciousness is a phenomena which is made possible by the brain. If an automaton which resembled a human being in every way except that it did not have a consciousness existed would you have to respect it ethically? Clearly not. It is the presence of a consciousness and an observer which makes the difference. The observer is thrown into the world with others, and must be treated as an other, ethics apply to the being which has human consciousness, or rather, rational consciousness, since any highly intelligent race of aliens would have essentially the same type of consciousness, simply attached to a different body.

I'm also very curious how you arrived at the conclusion that zygotes are people. You simply can't refuse to defend your position if you wish to attack mine, neither of us is in a necessarily offensive/defensive position at the moment. You can preform offense and defense in the same post without breaking some kind of rules of debate.

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@xris,

xris;126122 wrote:

Sorry to ask this but do you see a one month old in the same category as a zygote. You feel they should have the same rights?

Yes, human zygotes and human one month olds are in the same category, namely, human being. Rights are similar at least. I don't think either can get a drivers license or vote for example so I think they should have same basic rights or the one most basic of rights which is the right to life.

We were all zygotes once. I remember it well. Alas my misspent youth. I should have made more of my time in the womb.

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@Deckard,

We were all sperm once too. I'm weary of giving person-hood to practically single celled organisms. It reeks of determinism.

1 Reply

@Deckard,

I'm not taking sides on the life/choice question just now (a subtext here?), but I do think the difficulty is that mother and child are to some degree "one" during gestation. We can shift rights either away from the mother to the fetus or away from the fetus to the mother. It reminds me of the animal rights dilemma. To increase animal rights is to decrease human rights.

Hypothetical question: if some mad scientist psychopath kidnapped John Doe, a successful corporate lawyer, and replaced his brain with a device that kept heart and lungs working, etc, and also put his brain in a machine that kept it alive....

Who has the rights (or legal person-hood), his body or his brain? Neither or both?

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@amist,

amist;126303 wrote:

We were all sperm once too. I'm weary of giving person-hood to practically single celled organisms. It reeks of determinism.

I draw the line at conception. A sperm cell is not a human being nor is an egg cell a human being. The human being begins when they combine. That's when the human life begins. This makes more sense than drawing the line at first breath or third trimester.

The real issue is not when human life or personhood begins. The question is: Should the interests of the mother outweigh the rights of unborn child. That's a question I have a little more trouble with. I believe that human life, and thus personhood begins at conception but I am less sure as to whether or not the mother should be legally obligated to carry that life, that person, to term. This is a much tougher question.

When I hear someone say that a fetus isn't a human being it just makes me dig in. I can't stand the absurdity of it. Why not face the real issue rather than redefining human life.

I hate the legal fiction that a corp is a person and I hate the fiction that a fetus is not a person. This is the exact opposite of how it should be.

We will likely find much more common ground if we look at the mother's right to choose rather than the unborn's status as human being and natural person.

After all, there are cases where killing an adult person is not illegal. Self-defense for example. Perhaps abortion is one of these types of cases. Self-defense isn't murder but it is still taking a human life.

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@Deckard,

It's not a fiction that fetuses aren't people, they have nothing which I wish to associate with person-hood. Convince me that fetuses are people.

1 Reply

@Deckard,

Well I do not think corporations are entitled to the bill of rights.
I also do not think that a fertilized ovum has the same legal rights as a viable fetus.
A difficult area of the law and of ethics but potential life does not get the same legal protections as established life.

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@amist,

amist;126310 wrote:

It's not a fiction that fetuses aren't people, they have nothing which I wish to associate with person-hood. Convince me that fetuses are people.

"person" has an interesting etymology. Latin persona originally meant a character in a drama or a mask. The word persona has a pretty interesting history stretching back to the Medieval Philosophers. There are several definitions in any given dictionary. It's a very interesting word. It's philosophical meaning is different from its legal meaning though the two meanings are also connected in various ways.

I just think it makes more sense to call fetuses legal persons than it does to call corporations legal persons. Given a choice between the two I would choose fetuses. I side with the fetuses against the corporations in this definitional jihad. If you had to choose just one, which would it be? I'm guessing you would refuse to answer, and that's fine.

In Law a person is simply a human or organization with legal rights and duties. The law can call anything a legal person as the case of the corporations points out. There were sound reasons for this legal fiction though I would have made up a new word for corporate personhood. The 14th amendment was clearly about natural persons.

A natural person is a man, woman, or child, in distinction from a corporation. I want to add zygotes, embryos and fetuses (OH MY!). I think the 14th amendment should be applied to the unborn. However, I am a little worried that the embryos may hijack the elections with all their campaign finance money.

How about this: If we cannot agree that a zygotes, embryos and fetuses (Oh MY!) should be considered a natural persons, then can we at least agree that they are human beings?

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@Deckard,

Quote:

A natural person is a man, woman, or child, in distinction from a corporation.

So we can only understand people as people insofar as they are not corporations? Rrrrright...

Quote:

How about this: If we cannot agree that a zygotes, embryos and fetuses (Oh MY!) should be considered a natural persons, then can we at least agree that they are human beings?

This statement pretty much reads 'If we can't agree that zygotes, embryos and fetuses should be considered people, can we at least agree that they are people?'. But you define people as not corporations, so I don't even know what the hell this could possibly mean.

1 Reply

@amist,

amist;126320 wrote:

So we can only understand people as people insofar as they are not corporations? Rrrrright...

That's what The Man says.

amist;126320 wrote:

This statement pretty much reads 'If we can't agree that zygotes, embryos and fetuses should be considered people, can we at least agree that they are people?'. But you define people as not corporations, so I don't even know what the hell this could possibly mean.

How about this are human fetuses human? Or is saying 'human fetus' closer to saying 'human leg' than to saying 'human child'?

(I fell like I'm doing all the work for you.)

I would still like to discuss a mother's right to choose even if the unborn are legal persons and/or human beings; Anyone? Does accepting a fetus as a human person really preclude a mother's right to choose?

1 Reply

@Deckard,

I think this a silly debate that has the intention of making one stupid legal ability reason to argue for an unreasonable attitude. When we can stop children, born and breathing, from dying every minute of every day, because of the lack of clean drinking water, then I might listen to these faith driven extremist opinions.

1 Reply

@xris,

xris;126383 wrote:

I think this a silly debate that has the intention of making one stupid legal ability reason to argue for an unreasonable attitude. When we can stop children, born and breathing, from dying every minute of every day, because of the lack of clean drinking water, then I might listen to these faith driven extremist opinions.

God is dead and I'm still pro-life.

Abortion has been legal in the US since 1973 and born and breathing children are still dieing. Abortion just doesn't seem to be helping keep these children alive. Silly argument...possibly faith based...or at least repeated without much thought...which amounts to the same thing.

1 Reply

@Deckard,

Deckard;126522 wrote:

God is dead and I'm still pro-life.

Abortion has been legal in the US since 1973 and born and breathing children are still dieing. Abortion just doesn't seem to be helping keep these children alive. Silly argument...possibly faith based...or at least repeated without much thought...which amounts to the same thing.

It is not matter of what you say but what you dont. Ive heard from roman catholics the same dogmatic driven moralising. They let thousands die of aids because of their dogmatic views on contraception but maintain their bigoted moral high ground on abortion. Whats your considered view on the thousands of deaths by aids because of RC Churches views? Do you stand up for all those children in the same moralising fashion.

1 Reply

@xris,

xris;126529 wrote:

It is not matter of what you say but what you dont. Ive heard from roman catholics the same dogmatic driven moralising. They let thousands die of aids because of their dogmatic views on contraception but maintain their bigoted moral high ground on abortion. Whats your considered view on the thousands of deaths by aids because of RC Churches views? Do you stand up for all those children in the same moralising fashion.

Yes I do stand up for those children in the same moralizing fashion.

1 Reply

@Deckard,

Deckard;126540 wrote:

Yes I do stand up for those children in the same moralizing fashion.

Funny all Ive heard you say is how an unformed foetus needs legal protection. As I said its not what you say its what you dont.

1 Reply

@xris,

Deckard;126540 wrote:

Yes I do stand up for those children in the same moralizing fashion.

xris;126672 wrote:

Funny all Ive heard you say is how an unformed foetus needs legal protection. As I said its not what you say its what you dont.

Deckard;126540 wrote:

Yes I do stand up for those children in the same moralizing fashion.

Keep in mind the OP isn't about whether or not children who are already born are persons, which is beyond dispute, but whether or not the unborn or persons. Nice try at misdirection but really, I have to give you the big FAIL! on that one.

1 Reply

@Deckard,

What we should be doing is aborting corporations that fail. Stop doing all these prop up tactics, so they can give out tax payer money bonuses. I know why no one is complaining, because they still like the new captain at the helm. Although he is using the old captains coordinates we are on course. Just ignore the leaks and everything will be fine. No one will care about politics until Monday night foot ball stops being aired.

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Are unborn humans more deserving of legal personhood than corporations?

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