A Blog for thinking Christianly about anything and everything.
Showing posts with label Abortion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Abortion. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Is There A Difference Between a “Human Being” and A “Human Person”?
It is noteworthy that the abortion debate is starting to take a major shift in terminology. The popular argument has gone from “The unborn is not a baby” or “The unborn is just a mass of tissue” or “The unborn is simply part of the mother’s body” to “The unborn is a human being, but not a person!” The reason for this shift is largely due to the fact that medical technology and science have progressed to the point that our knowledge about what the developing entity in the womb actually is has made it clear that it is not just a thing, rather, it’s an individual and unique human being.
The developing child has its own heartbeat from two weeks into the development process forward, it has its own unique DNA from the moment of conception when sperm and egg meet. The fact of the matter is, an unborn developing child in the womb is from the very beginning distinct from the mother’s body, a living organism, a human being. That the developing child is dependent upon the mother for survival is without question, but the last time I checked my two-year old is still dependent upon my wife and I for survival as well, so that hardly negates a developing child’s humanity.
The advancements in ultrasound technology (such as the 3D ultrasound picture seen in this post) have made the humanness of the developing child in the womb so much clearer to the eyes of so many. In fact, women who see an ultrasound picture of their baby prior to having an abortion are significantly more likely to choose to keep their baby than those who never do.
In fact with every step science has made towards better understanding the process of development in the womb it has become ever more clear that from conception a new distinctly human and distinctly separate human being has come into existence. As such, pro-abortion advocates have started to use language wherein the unborn are now recognized for what they are, human beings! Surely this settles the matter, right? Wrong.
It is now in vogue to try to make a distinction between being a human being and a human person. That is to say some (and the numbers who would argue this way are growing) are now arguing that the developing embryo, fetus, etc., is undeniably biologically human, but to be biologically human (they would argue) is not the same as being a person.
So then, the obvious question is what is it that makes the distinction between being biologically human and being a human person? Well every explanation that has been offered up by those who argue this position points towards functionality. In other words the dividing line between these two categories is the ability to achieve a certain level of (or perhaps number of) function. Suggestions have been put forth such as a human becomes a person when they are able to live outside the womb, breathe on their own, have self-awareness, consciousness, walk, talk, communicate or respond a certain way in specific set of circumstances, etc.
It would seem that no two lists of functions that supposedly gap the bridge between human being and human person tend to agree. In fact, this argument used by pro-abortion advocates is being used by some to go beyond justifying abortion and even advocating infanticide, killing those with mental disabilities and euthanizing the elderly whose functionality has slipped below a certain level.
The primary problem with this argument that divides humanity from personhood is that it is completely subjective and arbitrary. After all, whose list of functions is the right one? When exactly does personhood begin? Why should your list be the correct standard of personhood and mine the wrong one? If consciousness is an essential attribute of persons, is a human not a person when they are sleeping? What about if they are in a coma for a week, a month or a year? If I kill your baby before it meets a minimal amount of functions should I be charged for murder or for killing your pet?
It would seem that we are not able to ground the beginning of personhood in anything objective at all once we separate it and make it non-essential to human existence. This reasoning is what has allowed for the genocide of various people groups, slavery and of course abortion. If being human doesn’t mean being a person and it is okay to kill non-persons then we can justify any kind of murder we desire if we can simply label them a non-person. Whether they be Jews, black people, unborn babies, the elderly, the mentally handicapped, the slippery slope just never stops.
From the moment of conception there is a human person in continual development who in the very essence of their existence is filled with potential. Our responsibility as fellow human persons is to respect that developing life from conception to natural death. Regardless of whether that person realizes its full potential or not, by merit of being a human being it is to be afforded the respect of being a human person. There is no argument that reasonable gives us a basis to separate the two.
Humanity and Personhood, these two terms are a difference without a distinction. To be human is to be a person. Functionality doesn’t determine personhood and the day we allow that argument to take root in our country we have lost the ability to defend innocent life in so many categories and we open ourselves up to a new kind of Holocaust where you or someone you love may one day find yourself a victim of this horrid and unfounded philosophy.
Should Abortion be Legal to Keep Women Safe?
One of the popular arguments against making abortion illegal is that doing so will force women into having to take dangerous measures to get an abortion. These so-called “back-alley abortions” or “rusty coat hanger abortions” are actually irrelevant and misleading to the discussion of the legality and morality of abortion.
First, there have been many claims about countless women dying or sustaining serious injuries from unsafe illegal abortions prior to the legalization of abortion in the United States, however, there is serious debate about the statistics that have been thrown around in regard to how many illegal abortions occurred and the percentage of women who died from them. After all, compiling reliable data about off-the-record and illegal abortions is next to impossible. How can we have a realistic figure as to how many of these occurred given that the vast majority would never have beeb reported at all? So we should not be quick to believe Planned Parenthood or other pro-abortion groups who throw around such statistics in the first place.
Second, abortion isn’t always “safe” even when it is done legally by a licensed clinic and a real doctor. There have been numerous cases of healthy women dying in a real clinic with a real doctor performing the “operation.” Just recently a woman who was having a late term abortion, 33 weeks into her pregnancy, died under the hand of an abortion doctor.
Thirdly, and most importantly, there is a much bigger issue that is being ignored when this argument about “women’s safety if abortion is made illegal” is used. The issue is that which is central to the entire abortion debate, namely, is the unborn baby a person? If the answer is yes, then it is obvious that abortion should be illegal. If abortion should be made illegal because the unborn are human persons, then the fact that obtaining illegal abortions is unsafe is not a good reason to allow abortion to be legal.
Consider this, if an unborn baby is a person, then abortion is the termination of an innocent life. If abortion is the termination of an innocent life, then abortion is indeed murder. So the argument in regard to the danger of unsafe abortions is tantamount to a murderer complaining that if his/her right to murder an innocent person under federal law is revoked then it will be much less safe for him/her to murder without the proper safety conditions currently provided by the law! But clearly this is absurd, and yet it is indeed the actual case that we are dealing with.
There is only one matter to be settled in the abortion debate, is the life that begins at conception a human person from the very beginning? If the answer is “yes” then abortion is never permissible because it is the murder of an innocent person (with, perhaps, the exception of tubular pregnancies or other conditions which insure the death of both mother and child if the pregnancy is not terminated). If the answer is “no” then clearly abortion is permissible up to the point a zygote, embryo, fetus, newborn, etc., becomes a person (and who gets to decide when that happens?).
There is no other issue that matters in this debate. If at conception a human person comes into being then abortion is never justified and arguments like how dangerous illegal abortions are become totally irrelevant. Those who would seek out such dangerous operations would be doing so in violation of the law and with the intent of murder and should have no special considerations afforded them.
This is a red herring in the abortion debate, now you know why.
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