Personhood
Pro-life supporters argue that abortion is morally wrong on the basis that a fetus is an innocent human being.[14] Others reject this position by drawing a distinction between human being and human person, arguing that while the fetus is innocent and biologically human, it is not a person with a right to life.[15] In support of this distinction, some propose a list of criteria as markers of personhood. For example, Mary Ann Warren suggests consciousness (at least the capacity to feel pain), reasoning, self motivation, the ability to communicate, and self-awareness.[16] According to Warren, a being need not exhibit all of these criteria to qualify as a person with a right to life, but if a being exhibits none of them (or perhaps only one), then it is certainly not a person. Warren concludes that as the fetus satisfies only one criterion, consciousness (and this only after it becomes susceptible to pain),[17] the fetus is not a person and abortion is therefore morally permissible. Other philosophers apply similar criteria, concluding that a fetus lacks a right to life because it lacks self-consciousness,[18] rationality,[19] and autonomy.[20] These lists diverge over precisely which features confer a right to life,[21] but tend to propose various developed psychological features not found in fetuses.
Critics of this position typically argue that the proposed criteria for personhood would disqualify two classes of born human beings ??? reversibly comatose patients, and human infants ??? from having a right to life, since they, like fetuses, are not self-conscious, do not communicate, and so on.[22] Defenders of the proposed criteria may respond that the reversibly comatose do satisfy the relevant criteria because they "retain all their unconscious mental states".[23] Warren concedes that infants are not "persons" by her proposed criteria,[24]
and on that basis she and others concede that infanticide could be morally acceptable under some circumstances (for example if the infant is severely disabled[25] or in order to save the lives of several other infants[26]). Critics may see such concessions as an indication that the right to life cannot be adequately defined by reference to developed psychological features.
An alternative approach is to base personhood or the right to life on a being's natural or inherent capacities. On this approach, a being essentially has a right to life if it has a genetic propensity or natural capacity to develop the relevant psychological features; and, since human beings do have this natural capacity, they essentially have a right to life beginning at conception (or whenever they come into existence).[27] Critics of this position argue that mere genetic potential is not a plausible basis for respect (or for the right to life), and that basing a right to life on natural capacities would lead to the counterintuitive position that anencephalic infants, irreversibly comatose patients, and brain-dead patients kept alive on a medical ventilator, are all persons with a right to life.[28]
Abortion debate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
