Determining Personhood: A Response to the New Abortion Laws
Introduction
Amidst all the excitement and disgust at the newly passed abortion laws in New York state, it seemed like a rather pressing idea to find a way to make a point. I have seen a few articles that articulate well the idea that an unborn fetus is still a holder of the image of God (a point I quite agree with) and those comparing the current state of where our culture is moving to the Canaanites (another point I agree with). However, my goal was to tackle this issue without using God as my primary arguing point (although my argument does presuppose there is an immaterial aspect to the world).
There has been a highly contentious place within philosophy about personhood. Essentially, I will be presenting my criteria for determining personhood and that unborn babies fall under this qualification. The overall point is to show that this is not religiously bad, scientifically bad, but philosophically bad. I guess you could say I am looking to round out the trifecta if you will. So, below are five points that I feel go towards determining personhood and any being that holds all five of these things is a person. The idea of person goes beyond just being a human being because God is a person (I am talking conceptually the idea of God, he is a person) but speaks to more than the material aspects of a being. This place in philosophy is a rather interesting thing to study and I do suggest if you are interested to do some further investigation.
Like all good ideas, they come with a handy acronym/ mnemonic and mine is no different in this case. MIND-R is it and as such, each letter represents a part of determining personhood. Mind, Innovation, Nostalgia, Determination, and Relationships. Now, at first glance this list may seem to not make much sense but alas if you continue on I will show my points. One thing I should also make clear is that from my position I am not strictly discussing actualizations but potentialities. By this I mean, that it is far more than someone simply having these qualities and doing so immediately but rather if there is a being that has the potential for all of these qualities then personhood extends to them. So, let me proceed to see if I can give an adequate rendition of my points and hopefully sway your mind towards a new position.
Philosophical Discussion on Personhood
To begin, when one thinks of a mind they typically thinking of a creature that can reason to a conclusion or something to this effect. We know that adult human beings have minds or at least each individual can surmise that they have a mind (Cogito, ergo sum).[1] Some may presume that a child that is still inside the womb does not hold a mind in the sense that grown humans do. However, the difference is essentially minute. Adults have an actualized mind. Meaning they have gone through those early developmental stages to bring about their potential for a fully formed and highly functioning mind to the end result of having an actualized mind. With that said, pre-born infants may have a lower functioning mind but what they have is the potentiality for a fully functioning mind. This, in essence, means that at some point their minds will be the exact same as an adult mind (given normal functionality, no defects). My whole position is predicated on not simply actualizing a thing but having the potential for that thing as well. So, if a being has the potential of a mind then they should be viewed as having that mind since at some point that mind will be manifested. This is not the only aspect of determining personhood and it would be sad to just pin all of something as complex as personhood on one aspect. So, the next portion is dealing with innovation and to that, I now turn.
Innovation in and of itself is by far not a compelling reason for determining personhood but it does serve its purpose. When thinking of what most would conclude is a person, the idea of being able to actualize new ideas seems like par for the course. So, each pre-born child has the potential to bring about innovative ideas. With that said, some of these innovations are simply self-centered but others typically encompass most or all of humanity (e.g. finding solutions for clean water). Each person has within their mind this capability to bring about innovative thoughts that can lead to some solution to a problem. The pre-born infant is no different only they are limited in the scope of what they can achieve until they have reached a certain age. So, every baby has the potential for innovative thought and even some adults have not actualized these thoughts, but they still have the potential to do so. An essential part of personhood is the ability to bring about new ideas and put them into practical use. These can also be simple things because many people use this in everyday circumstances to overcome problems. This point is closely tied to the mind but again taken on its own it does not provide much weight. That is why it is important to take all of these aspects in conjunction with one another.
Next, is the potential for nostalgia. This may seem like an odd thing to suggest but this is rather important. Each person has the ability to look back at their lives and reminisce about enjoyments or struggles they had. What this can do is give a person the chance to reevaluate choices that were made and determine within themselves to make a change in the manner in which they operate. The way that I am thinking of this is deeper than an animal learning that a certain instinct does not work so they try another approach until they find a working one (survival-centered). This is more in-depth because each person is actively evaluating their circumstances (past) and playing different scenarios and weighing outcomes. Again, this aspect is closely tied to the mind as well since it takes the capacity to reason to play through these different scenarios. But the beautiful thing about this nostalgia is that babies, without a doubt, have the potential for this. What remains to be shown is that babies could even have a form of this when they are still babies. This is purely conjectured on my part since there is no scientific evidence to suggest that babies can do a form of this when they are babies but the most important takeaway is they nonetheless have the potential to bring this about. It should be stated again that potentiality for something should be viewed as that something essentially existing. Though many of these things are developing in small babies (post-birth) no one would suggest that since they cannot actualize much of anything they are worthy of extermination. That’s the point here, that there is little difference between an 8-week pregnancy child and one that is 8 weeks old post-birth. Each are at different developmental stages but they both possess these potentialities to bring about certain states of affairs and do so in a meaningful way.
Moving along, these pre-born children also have the potentiality for determination. By determination, I do not mean simply that they can push through adversity but rather that they can within themselves determine the direction of their lives (or intentionality). This can be seen in parent-child relationships where the parents desire a child to move in a certain professional direction, but the child determines their own course contra what the parents want. The beautiful thing about this self-determination is that it can be seen in children that are quite young. When you see a young baby and they determine that they are going to move towards those blocks and attempt to construct an elaborate structure (the structure is elaborate to them). The difficult part here is to not mistake this self-determination for animal instinct. An animal may act out of a certain state of affairs that dictate they need to perform a certain action. But with a person, this determination need not be dictated by the need for something but out of a desire of the will. An example could be that you will not see an animal starving themselves for a certain cause, but you can see examples of this throughout human history (hunger strikes). The animal at some point will determine based on the need to survive that they need to consume food and will seek it out. But this self-determination will sometimes run against the grain of what our physical bodies are telling us and yet we still push towards whatever our minds have been set on.
The last aspect for my method of determining personhood is relationships. This means that there is a potentiality for developing and maintaining relationships. This point can be seen in the animal kingdom where there are familial bonds developed so that these units can survive. But what is more interesting is the types of relationships that form within humans because these sometimes transcend some basic need. Thankfully my position is not based on each individual aspect taken on its own but as a collective. Relationships are very important and the types of complex relationships that exist for mankind are astounding. It can take an immense amount of mind, innovation, determination, and those sorts of things to maintain these relationships. People need these bonds. One can glean this from the detrimental effects on the human mind when placed in solitary confinement. What the pre-born baby has is a potential for developing these meaningful relationships and doing so in very complex ways. So, when you end a being's potential for something you remove the actualization of that thing as well. Whatever potential that being had is now impossible for it to be actualized in the real world. If that does not cause one to think about other positions, I do not believe anything will.
Objections or Points of Concern
There is one major concern that I can personally find in my reasoning. When I state someone has the potential for a certain thing it should be considered that they have actualized that thing. This is a problem because someone could argue that each person has the potential for murder or rape so we should just take care of the problem now. My response to this is relatively simple, even though this child may have the potential for evil the potential to actualize good outweighs the potential bad. Generally speaking, most people do not go commit these evil acts so I believe a position of innocent until proven guilty should apply here. However, I do admit that this is one weakness in the argument I have presented, I think that the potential for all of the good that could result is worth the minimal risk to the contrary.
Conclusion
Whether or not you fully agree with my basis for determining personhood these things listed above and the idea behind it should cause thought prior to ending the potential for something. My whole position is predicated on this idea that anything that has the potential for something should be considered as having that something. When I am thinking about this I am thinking of things with ultimate good value (i.e. life). This argument (just like any argument) can be flipped around and used for bad purposes such as suggesting that each person has the potential for murder so we should stop them prior to their actualizing it. The issue is that there is this implied negative as opposed to assuming the positive. With many stances there are some presuppositions that are made but when thinking about a developing human having the potential for all of these good, person driven qualities it is hard to take a position that would suggest we need to eradicate them because of a minor inconvenience or other extenuating circumstances. There are always other and better options and the value of having personhood and these potentialities should be considered prior to putting into law anything that may disrupt the order and development of personhood.
[1] Rene Descartes, Discourse on the Method. This is the first time this statement was found in Descartes and it means “I think therefore I am.”
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