We're fine.Oops. Did I torpedo a nice conversation? I didn't mean to challenge you.
I can play along. Personhood is an interesting thing to discuss. I just wanted to make the point that it's not a cornerstone for my beliefs.
I think an important aspect of personhood is mind, and an important aspect of mind is the ability to make abstractions. Wasn't there a recent PBS special comparing cognitive abililties between people and animals? If I recall, they concluded that chimps are very poor at abstraction. The animal that showed the most potential was the raven.
So, how would you define "person"?
I was primarily interested in the rationale of your position and the reasons for your statements. If it is not too much simplification, your position seems to one derived from faith.
As an atheist, however, I can't just say 'faith' for my position and have done with it. If I am going to claim that a fetus is a person, I want a reason ... I need a reason to do so. That's my make up.
Mere human-ness doesn't cut it. A corpse may be human, but there is nothing there of humanity, so to speak. Skin cells have all the information for making a human. Is that sufficient to outlaw scratching? Should then a single cell, a fertilized egg, be considered a person? Why? For what reasons?
Personhood is important, I think, in order to distinguish between a clump of cells worth caring about and another clump of cells not worth caring about.
I think consciousness is important; in this, we agree. I also think that in the absence of a brain, there is no consciousness. The fact that I can't prove that consciousness doesn't exist in the absence of a brain isn't any reason to allow for it any more than absence of evidence of leprechauns is any reason to believe or accept or allow that such things exist.
Beyond consciousness, I don't know what else might constitute a person. Nevertheless, there is a grey scale of consciousness. One might say that a cat is somewhat conscious. But it is likely we agree that a cat is not conscious the way a human is. A certain self-awareness seems necessary to making a person a person.
I am against killing walking/talking humans. I am unwilling to be the judge of whether any breathing human is not a human.
However, I am also against outlawing the pill, which prevents the implantation of the egg to the uterine wall.
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