Personhood and the Beginning of Human Life

PERSONHOOD AND THE BEGINNING OF HUMAN LIFE AIDST THE CONFUSION and strong feelings which pervade the abortion controversy a few facts have become quite clear. One is the variety and complexity of the issues. Another is the need for deeper philosophical reflection on these issues. A third is the central importance of two questions: (I) When does human life begin? and (fl) What is a person? This es.say presents a philosophical analysis of these two questions. We hope (I) through conceptual analysis to arrive at a classificatory or descriptive definition of the individual human being-a definition decisive for determining when human life begins-and also at such a definition of personhood; (fl) to prove that these concepts are essentially philosophical; and (3) to show not only that establishing the philosophical meaning of human life and personhood must precede legal, sociological , and moral considerations but that these are not possible until the philosophical task has been carried out. In spite of the diversity of philosophical positions rooted in different if not opposing philosophical backgrounds, we believe that we can present a philosophical position which, taking into account the available empirical data, maintains a higher level of consistency and .should attract a wider range of acceptance than any previously stated position. This essay has two parts. In the second part we pursue the threefold objective enunciated above. In the first part, as a preliminary, we survey the answers which others have advanced . These answers have usually been linked with various legal, ethical, and other considerations, but we shall review only what relates to the beginning of human life and to personhood. Though a brief critical evaluation follows each presentation, ~47 248 GABRIEL PASTRANA the difference of our own position from those discussed will become clearer when we present our own position in the second part of the essay. Note that this essay is not a direct discussion of the morality of abortion but an effort to provide the basis for such discussion. I. SURVEY OF POSITIONS Following the division proposed by Daniel Callahan, we group the positions under three headings: the genetic school, the developmental school, and the social consequences school. The Genetic School This school comprises those for whom human life begins at the moment of conception or soon thereafter. One of the best known proponents of this position is John T. Noonan. In a long review article discussing the history of thought on abortion and on the criterion of the human, Noonan concludes that " once conceived, the being was recognized as man because he had man's potential. The criterion for humanity , thus, was simple and all-embracing: if you are conceived by human parents, you are human." 1 Noonan rejects viability, experience, feelings, sentiments, and social visibility- " being socially visible as human"-as criteria. Moral judgments often rest on distinctions, but if the distinctions are not to look like arbitrary fiats they should relate to some real differences in probabilities. Once conception has taken place there is a sharp shift in probabilities; though the argument from probabilities is not aimed at establishing humanity, it does establish an objective discontinuity which may be taken into account in moral discourse. The positive argument for conception as the decisive moment of humanization is that at conception the new being receives the genetic code. " It is this genetic information which determines his characteristics, which 1 John T. Noonan, "An Almost Absolute Value in History," in John T. Noonan (ed.), The Morality of Abortion (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970), 1-59, at p. 51. PERSONHOOD: HUMAN LIFE 249 is th~ biological carrier of the possibility of human wisdom, which makes him a self-evolving being. A being with a human genetic code is man." 2 Thus Noonan has answered his initial question, "How do you determine the humanity of a being?", by looking at the human origins of the product of conception, at the genetic code which presumably is established at the moment of conception, and at the degree of probability of survival that the fetus has once it has reached that stage. Though those biological stages are undoubtedly most important in the process of development of the fetus, Noonan has...