Beginning of human personhood
In modernity, the concepts of subjectivity and intersubjectivity, personhood, mind, and self have come to encompass a number of aspects of humanness that were previously considered to be characteristics of the soul.
An alternative question, both historically and in modern times, may be at what point does the developing individual acquire personhood or selfhood.
Different biologists have proposed that personhood begins at such events as fertilization, gastrulation, the acquisition of an EEG pattern, and birth.
[5]: 1070 Rice also quotes Herbert Ratner in A Doctor Talks About Abortion: "It is now of unquestionable certainty that a human being comes into existence precisely at the moment when the sperm combines with the egg".
[citation needed] In the college text book Psychology and Life, Floyd L. Ruch wrote: "At the moment of conception, two living germ cells (sperm and egg) unite to produce an individual".
[19] James C. G. Conniff wrote: "At that moment conception takes place and, scientists generally agree, a new life begins—silent, secret, unknown".
[20] In his book Aborting America, Bernard Nathanson said implantation should be considered the point at which life begins.
[citation needed] He went on to support the idea, similar to processes in other species, one twin could be the parent of the other asexually.
Upon viability, the pregnancy can be terminated, as by a c-section or induced labor, with the fetus surviving to become a newborn infant.
[citation needed] There is no sharp limit of development, gestational age, or weight at which a human fetus automatically becomes viable.
[42] Women who have previously given birth have more-relaxed uterine muscles that are more sensitive to fetal motion during subsequent pregnancies.
When childhood began to develop its own distinctive features, including graded schools to teach literacy, other skills, and cultural knowledge, this view changed.
[52] Ancient writers held diverse views on the beginning of personhood, which they understood as the soul's entry into or development in the human body.
[55] According to the Jewish Talmud, all life is precious but a fetus is not a person, in the sense of termination of pregnancy being considered murder.
Some followers of Jainism promoted the idea sperm cells contain life (jivas) and thus harming them opposes the principle of non-violence (ahimsa).
[65] Any marker of the beginning of human personhood does not necessarily mark the moment where assistance or intervention are ethically correct or incorrect.
In a view holding the value of the bringing into existence of potential persons, it has been argued the abortion of an unintended pregnancy in favor for conceiving a new child later in better conditions is justified.
According to Donald DeMarco,[67] the Church treated the killing of an unformed or "unanimated" fetus as a matter of "anticipated homicide", with a corresponding lesser penance required.
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church: "Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception.
"[68] Abortion in the United Kingdom was traditionally dealt with in the ecclesiastical courts, but from 1115, English common law addressed the issue, beginning with first mention in Leges Henrici Primi.
With the exception of Bracton, later writers said killing a fetus is "great misprision, and no murder", as formulated by Sir Edward Coke in his Institutes of the Lawes of England.
Sir William Blackstone repeated this formulation in England and in Bouvier's Law Dictionary in the United States.
In addition, common law regarded "a child en ventre sa mere" (in utero) as "in being" or "as born" when ensuring wills and trusts did not run afoul of the rule against perpetuities; nine or sometimes ten months of gestation were allotted for this purpose.
[69] In 2013, the Parliament of New South Wales considered a bill known as "Zoe's law", which was widely perceived as recognizing a fetus of 20 weeks as a legal person.
[78] In 1973, Harry Blackmun wrote the court opinion for Roe v. Wade, addressing the issue of human personhood in relation to abortion rights.
When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate".
Some versions defined the word "person" in the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments to apply to all human beings starting at conception.
[86] The law extends personhood status to a "child in utero at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb",[87] if they are targeted, injured, or killed during the commission of any of over 60 listed violent crimes.
Since then, 38 U.S. states legally recognized a human fetus or "unborn child" as a crime victim for the purpose of homicide or feticide laws.
[93][95][96] The court's ruling led three major Alabama medical providers to discontinue in-vitro fertilization treatment because of the legal uncertainty the decision created.
