Human Persons
I don't really understand why whether or not the foetus is a human being is being made the issue here. I agree with TFP's argument that the two sex cells joined as one are a human. I just don't care. What matters to me is whether or not they form a person.
Killing a human is not really a big issue (or it is, but not in this debate), we kill humans, legally and perhaps morally justifiably all the time. We do it in self-defense, we do it in combat scenarios in wars, and most importantly for this argument we do it to those criminals who we have judged no longer fit for life.
The interesting thing about that last one is that we tend to judge those people on what we perceive as their humanity; not their actual genetic, scientific humanity, but more on their perceived humanistic qualities. This is what I refer to when I make a distinction between human and person. A human is any being which possesses the necessary genetic traits; a person is any being which possesses the necessary empathetic traits. We tend to confuse these terms a bit too much, we talk of horrible murderers as being "inhuman" but we do not mean it genetically, we mean that they do not display the necessary empathetic behavioural traits that we associate with other people. It is interesting to note that many pro-lifers are completely in favour of the death penalty, even in this debate. (I know Ethan is, for example)
Now then, this being the case, it seems that those who are not people, can legally and morally justifiably be killed in certain circumstances. If a criminal can lose his or her status as a person by violating the rights of others and thus by violating the rules of personhood, why is it immoral to kill a foetus, which has not engaged in any of the rules for personhood at all and which, through harm caused to the mother, is actually violating those rules?
A criminal may yet reform and re-become a person and re-engage with those rules, become anew a member of the moral community, so thus it is unfair to assume that future actions (which are only vague possibilities) should have any relevance in one's personhood.
...Seriously? I've heard of people refer to personal beings that aren't humans. For example, biblical Christianity (my own spiritual belief system) contains such nonhuman persons as angels and God (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost). Additionally, some science fiction often contains nonhuman persons like Martians or Klingons. But...
a nonperson human?
I'm tempted to just ridicule this idea because it is just that far off, but that never does any good. I think most here can see your position's depth of irrationality. You really need to rethink your view. But since this is a debate, I should help you rethink your view:
Your view has numerous fundamental problems, the first of which is mostly pragmatic. Do you realize the effect your stance would have on the laws of most civilized countries? I suspect that, like the U.S., the U.K. probably holds trials
even for people who are
already known to have committed murder. The law of the U.S. holds that these are persons. If they were not recognized as persons, then there is no reason to give them a trial.
Second, your statements are essentially societally based. If a human being existed in a corner of the universe that happened not to have any other persons, this human being (though isolated from other persons) would still be a human person. Period.
It is certainly true that some humans behave in an inhuman manner and that some persons behave in an un-personable manner, but they don't stop being humans or persons. We do not determine humanness or personhood merely by behavior. Neither is personhood determined by mental states. Either of these classifications are wholly inaccurate, causing horrible societal problems. Toward the end of your post, you even seem to have realized the problem with your view on some level. So, for example, if a person becomes mentally incapacitated, your view absolutely necessitates that he is no longer a person, or at the very least, that he becomes
less of a person. (More on that later.)
Because you specifically state the idea that people can lose personhood, your view is faced with a very bad problem: Namely, what about those who are unconscious for a period of time? You mentioned persistent vegetative states, but what about coma patients? People can be in a coma for years, days, or even hours without being in a persistent vegetative state. By your view, because these beings are not consciously and rationally interacting with others, they become nonpersons.
The basic problem is that your view is time-based. It requires that to be considered a person, you must be a person at any given time. This idea is logically and philosophically bankrupt. Apply the same logic to life and you will see why. Living things, according to numerous good definitions of life, must be able to reproduce. But a host of living things have
not yet reproduced. Yet scientists know that (for example) a young elephant or a young human is still a living thing. Further, there are people who remain single their whole lives and never reproduce. Also, some human couples are incapable of bearing children. If they must reproduce to be considered living, this challenges their claim to be alive. Even more so, since a being must be alive to be a person, this challenges the rights of singles and other...nonreproductoids...to even be called persons. To have NO rights as a person under the law just because I haven't participated in producing a child would be horrifying.
Your view also doesn't mention the degree to which people are rationally or empathetic. Persons are empathetic or rational
to varying degrees. This logically necessitates varying degrees of personhood. So for example, people who are mentally challenged are less persons. While attempting to reason through this post, I've been struggling with a headache; perhaps that makes me less of a person. Some noncriminal humans are just not very empathetic, which in your view makes them less persons. When people drink wine, beer, vodka, etc., they temporarily lose some degree of personhood. Those people who have used marijuana, meth, etc, have permanently lost some personhood. Anyway, with some persons being less persons than others, the idea of all people beings equal is hardly defensible. That is, unless you wish to say that some people are more equal than others. Tim, though this reference is a bit mixed, if you ruled the world we could all just party like it's 1984.
That would have been a great finale, but I also have to give the positive case. Since you agree that unborn children are living humans, I can use the same philosophical and logical definition of life to prove it. Like I mentioned before, one of the definitive characteristics of a living thing is the ability to reproduce. But in no way are monkeys, pigs, seahorses, eagles, or humans that have not or will not reproduced (for whatever reason) nonliving. Because of this general capability, they are alive. In the same way, living humans are persons because they have the capability for rational and empathetic function to varying degrees. That is all that is necessary to prove that living unborn humans are indeed persons.
Now I want you to go reconsider your position. Don't complain. Your view was both logically indefensible and morally reprehensible. Change your position.