CULTURE OF LIFE
Issues and Activism


Human
Personhood
by Peter Kreeft

Whether the fetus is
a human person is a
crucial question
because how we
answer it ultimately
affects the future of
our civilization. Find
out how this
question goes way
beyond being merely
a matter of a
woman´s control
over her own body.



November 14, 2001 / Non-Christians and even Christians
can take opposite positions on abortion even when they
think rationally, honestly, and with good will. The
continuing controversy over abortion shows that it is a
truly controversial issue.

It is not simple and clear cut, but complex. Just as the
choices for action are often difficult for a woman
contemplating abortion, the choices for thought are
often difficult for open-minded philosophers.

Everything I have said so far is a lie, in fact a dangerous
lie.

There is one and only one reason why people argue
about the topic of this paper, whether human
personhood begins at conception: because some people
want to justify abortion. Therefore I begin with some
remarks about abortion.

Abortion is a clear-cut evil. Anyone who honestly seeks
"peace on earth, good will toward men" will see this if
only he extends it to include women and children.
Especially Christians should see this very clearly, for
their faith reinforces their natural reason and
conscience, a faith that declares that every human
being is sacred because he or she is made in the image
of God. The fact that some people controvert a position
does not in itself make that position intrinsically
controversial. People argued for both sides about
slavery, racism and genocide too, but that did not make
them complex and difficult issues. Moral issues are
always terribly complex, said Chesterton - for someone
without principles.

I think I have already offended every reader who is not
clearly pro-life, and before I begin to argue my case I
would like briefly to examine that offense. Though I shall
appeal only to reason in the body of my paper, I want to
appeal first to an attitude of will because it is to the
argument like a frame to a picture. Our will often moves
our reason, for good or for ill. "For ill" refers to
rationalization, but how can will move reason for good?
By the initial attitude of honesty, which is a fanatical
and uncompromising love of truth, objective truth.

Objectivity does not mean abandoning or weakening our
convictions. An honest conviction is one arrived at after
an open-minded search for truth; a prejudice is one
arrived at before. Honesty leads to conviction, not away
from it.

I think we will have little hope of attaining this goal of
honesty unless we first realize its difficulty and the
sacrifices of self-will it demands. The most prejudiced
people in the world are those who think they are
unprejudiced. In my own thought life, I find this total
honesty to be very demanding, very rare, and absolutely
necessary.

Please turn to yourself for one moment and ask yourself
this one question: Am I reading this paper because I
want to be the servant of truth or because I want truth
to be my servant? Do I want to win an argument or win
a truth? Am I willing, even eager, to admit I was wrong if
reason proves me wrong?

If Freud is right, we have no hope of being honest, for
all our reasoning is rationalization. If that were true, it
would be self-eliminating, for that belief too would be
only rationalization. If we believe that objective truth
does not exist or cannot be known, we shall cease to
fight for it with words and begin to fight for domination
over each other, replacing reason and justice and
morality with power - as is done in abortion clinics to
preborn children.

It is not easy to argue about abortion objectively. Our
choice of words is already prejudicial - as mine was just
now - but no more so than calling the killing of a fetus
"the termination of a pregnancy." I wonder when they
will start calling it "the final solution to the pregnancy
problem"?

Our passions run hot about abortion. I have repeatedly
been told that I am naive to argue against abortion
philosophically, not realizing that abortion is not so much
about fetuses as about sex; that those who demand to
live "the sexual revolution" (i.e. promiscuously) must
have abortion as a backup, a trump card, when other
means of birth control fail. I have been told this by both
sides often enough so that I begin to believe it. After all,
if we obeyed the commandment against adultery, 90%
of all our abortions would cease.

The issue I have been asked to argue, the personhood
of the fetus, is triply crucial. It is crucial for abortion,
abortion is crucial for medical ethics, and medical ethics
is crucial for the future of our civilization.

First, the personhood of the fetus is clearly the crucial
issue for abortion, for if the fetus is not a person,
abortion is not the deliberate killing of an innocent
person; if it is, it is. All other aspects of the abortion
controversy are relative to this one; e.g. women have
rights - over their own bodies but not over other
person´s bodies. The law must respect a "right to
privacy," but killing other persons is not a private but a
public deed. Persons have a "right to life," but
non-persons (e.g. cells, tissues, organs, and animals) do
not.

Second, abortion is a crucial issue for medical ethics
because the right to life is the fundamental right. If I am
not living I can have no other rights. Corpses have no
rights. The two sides on this issue are more
intransigently opposed to each other than on any other
issue - rightly so, for if pro-lifers are right abortion is
murder, and if pro-choicers are right pro-lifers are
fanatic, intolerant and repressive about nothing. We
must intolerantly kill both intolerance and killing.

Third, medical ethics is crucial for our civilization, for our
lives are more closely touched here than by any
economic, political, or military issue. For instance,
artificial immortality would change mankind more radically
than a nuclear war, and surrogate motherhood, which
brings us to Brave New World, is a more radical
development than totalitarian dictatorship, which brings
us only to 1984.

Abortion is also crucial because it involves at least six
other crucial background issues: (1) Are there objective
values that must be known and obeyed, or do we create
our own values like the rules of a game?

(2) If there are objective values, are any of them
absolute, or are all relative to changing situations,
motives, needs, or desires?

(3) Is human life such an absolute, or "sacred," or does
the "quality of life" or level of ability to perform certain
human acts define the value of a person?

(4) Can human reason discern the truth about moral
values or not? (Curiously, Christian fideists here line up
with anti-Christian skeptics and secularists against
mainline Christian orthodoxy).

(5) What is a human person? Are we made in the image
of King Kong or King God or both?

(6) Why is a human person? What is the purpose, goal,
or "final cause" of human life? This question is
necessarily involved because the end determines the
means.

(7) Finally, abortion is defended most stoutly by the new
ideology of radical feminism, which is more fundamentally
critical of traditional values than any merely political
ideology, even in our century. It raises such radically
new questions as whether the idea of the sanctity of
preborn human life is part of a dark patriarchal plot to
suppress and control women as reproductive slaves.

All these issues are involved in abortion, but I shall argue
only one: Is the fetus a person? The case for pro-life´s
affirmative answer is well-known, and so are the
biological facts which constitute its simplest and
strongest evidence, especially the genetic identity and
individuality of the preborn child from the moment of
conception. How does the pro-choice position argue
against this case?

To understand the controversy, we must understand the
general structure of moral reasoning. A moral conclusion
about the goodness or evil of a human act is deduced
from two premises: a major premise, which states a
general moral principle (e.g. "we ought to pay our
debts") and a minor premise, which sees a particular
situation as coming under that principle (e.g.
"international debts are debts"). Thus the essential
pro-life argument is as follows. The major premise is:
"Thou shalt not kill" - i.e., all deliberate killing of innocent
human beings is forbidden. The minor premise is that
abortion is the deliberate killing of innocent human
beings. The conclusion is that abortion is wrong.

There are two significantly different pro-choice answers
to this argument. The more radical, or "hard" pro-choice
position denies the major premise; the less radical, or
"soft" pro-choice position denies the minor. "Hard
pro-choice" denies the sanctity or inviolability of all
humans; "soft pro-choice" denies the humanity of the
fetus.

I think no one in the Christian Medical and Dental
Society will take the hard pro-choice position, for
Christianity clearly teaches (1) that all of us are made in
the image of God and (2) that God Himself has forbidden
us to kill, i.e. to murder innocent persons. I confine
myself, therefore, to refuting the soft pro-choice
position.

Is the fetus a person? Obviously it is biologically human,
genetically human, a distinct member of the species
homo sapiens. So the soft pro-choicer must distinguish
between human beings and persons, must say that
fetuses are human but not persons, and that all persons,
but not all humans, are sacred and inviolable.

Thus the crucial issue is: Are there any human beings
who are not persons? If so, killing them might be
permissible, like killing warts. But who might these human
non-persons be? Jews? Blacks? Slaves? Infidels?
Counter-revolutionaries? Others have said so, and
justified their genocide, lynching, slavery, jihad, or
gulag. But pro-choicers never include these groups as
non-persons. Many pro-choicers include severely
retarded or handicapped humans, or very old and sick
humans, as non-persons, but this is still morally shocking
to most people, and many pro-choicers avoid that
morally shocking position by including only fetuses as
members of this newly invented class of human
non-persons, or non-personal humans. I think no one
ever conceived of this category before the abortion
controversy. It looks very suspiciously like the category
was invented to justify the killing, for its only members
are the humans we happen to be now killing and want to
keep killing and want to justify killing. But the only way
we can prove this dark suspicion true is to refute the
category. Are there any humans who are not persons?

Soft pro-choicers give reasons for thinking there are.
Their position can be fairly summarized, I think, in seven
arguments. Each attacks a basic pro-life syllogism by
accusing it in different ways of an ambiguous middle
term "human being." They say a fetus is a human life but
not a human person:

First, there is the linguistic fact that we can and often
do make a triple distinction among a human life, a human
being and a human person. Each cell in our bodies has
human life, and a single cell kept alive in a laboratory
could be called "a human life" but certainly not "a human
being" or "a human person." "A human being" is a
biologically whole individual of the species. Even a
human being born with no brain is a human being, not an
ape, but it is not a person, because it has no brain and
cannot do anything distinctively human: think, know,
choose, love, feel, desire, commit, relate, aspire, know
itself, know God, know its past, know its future, know its
environment, or communicate - all of which have, in
various combinations, been offered as the marks of a
person. The pro-life position seems to confuse the
sanctity of the person with the sanctity of life, which is
two steps removed from it. Thus, pro-life seems to be
based on a linguistic confusion. Not all human life is
sacred. Not even all human beings, individual members of
the human species, are sacred. But all human persons
are sacred.

Second, pro-lifers seem to commit the intellectual sin of
biologism, idolatry of biology, by defining persons in a
merely biological genetic, material way. Membership in a
biological species is not morally relevant, not what
makes persons sacred and murder wrong. Membership in
the human species is no more morally relevant than
membership in the subspecies, or race. If racism is
wrong, so is speciesism.

Third, the very young product of conception, the
zygote, has no ability to perform any of the distinctive
activities that anyone associates with personhood
(reasoning, choosing, loving, communicating, etc.) - not
even feeling pain, for the zygote has no brain or nervous
system. At first it is only a single cell. How could anyone
call a single cell a person?

Fourth, it seems to be an obvious mistake for the
pro-lifer to claim that personhood begins abruptly, at
conception, for personhood develops gradually, as a
matter of degree. Every one of the characteristics we
use to identify personhood arises and grows gradually,
as a matter of degree. Every one of the characteristics
we use to identify personhood arises and grows
gradually rather than suddenly. Pro-lifers seem to be
victims of simplistic, black-or-white thinking, but reality
is full of greys.

Fifth, pro-lifers seem to confuse potential persons with
actual persons. The fetus is potentially a person, but it
must grow into an actual person.

Sixth, personhood is not a clear concept. There is not
universal agreement on it. Different philosophers,
scientists, religionists, moralists, mothers, and observers
define it differently. It is a matter of opinion where the
dividing line between persons and non-persons should be
located. But what is a matter of opinion should not be
decided or enforced by law. Law should express social
consensus, and there is no consensus in our society
about personhood´s beginning or, consequently, about
abortion. One opinion should not be forced on all.
Pro-choice is not pro-abortion but, precisely,
pro-choice.

Seventh, a fetus cannot be a person because it is part
of another person, the mother. Persons are wholes, not
parts. Persons are not parts of other persons, but the
fetus is part of another person. Therefore, the fetus is
not a person.

There is a common premise hidden behind all seven of
these pro-choice arguments. It is the premise of
Functionalism; defining a person by his or her
functioning, or behavior. A "behavioral definition" is
proper and practical for scientific purposes of prediction
and experimentation, but it is not adequate for ordinary
reason and common sense, much less for good
philosophy or morality, which should be based on
common sense. Why?

Because common sense distinguishes between what one
is and what one does, between being and function, thus
between "being a person" and "functioning as a person."
One cannot function as a person without being a person,
but one can surely be a person without functioning as a
person. In deep sleep, in coma, and in early infancy,
nearly everyone will admit there are persons, but there
are no specifically human functions such as reasoning,
choice, or language. Functioning as a person is a sign
and an effect of being a person. It is because of what
we are, because of our nature or essence or being, that
we can and do function in these ways. We have human
souls, and plants do not; that´s why we can know
ourselves and plants can´t. Functionalism makes the
elementary mistake of confusing the sign with the thing
signified, the smoke with the fire. As a Zen master would
say, "the finger is fine for pointing at the moon, but woe
to him who mistakes the finger for the moon".

The Functionalist or Behaviorist would reply that he is
skeptical of such talk about natures, essences, or
natural species (as distinct from conventional,
man-made class-groupings). But the Functionalist
cannot use ordinary language without contradicting
himself. He says, e.g., that there is no such thing as
"river" because all rivers are different. But how then can
he call them all "rivers"? The very word "all" should be
stricken from his speech. His nominalism makes nonsense
of ordinary language.

The Functionalist claims he is being simple and
commonsensical by not speaking of essences. He says
that traditional talk about essences is dated,
dispensable, mystical, muddled, and anti-scientific. But
he is wrong. Talk about essences is not dated but
perennial, built into the very structure of language, for
most words are universals predictable of many
individuals. Essence talk is not dispensable without
dispensing with understanding itself and reducing us to
an animal state of mind where brute empirical fact reigns
alone. Essence talk is not mystical but commonsensical.
It is not muddled but clear to any child. It is not
anti-scientific, for science seeks universal laws, truths
about the species, not quirks of the specimen.

Functionalism is not only theoretically weak, it is also
practically destructive. Modern man is increasingly
reducing his being to functions. We no longer ask, "Who
is he?" but, "What does he do?" We think of a man as a
fireman, not as a man fighting fires; of a woman as a
teacher, not as a woman teaching.

Functionalism arises with the modern erosion of the
family. Our civilization is dying primarily because the
family is dying. Half of our families commit suicide, for
divorce is the family committing suicide qua family. But
the family is the place where you learn that you are
loved not because of what you do, your function, but
because of who you are. What is replacing the family,
where we are valued for our being? The workplace,
where we are valued for our functioning.

This replacement in society is mirrored by the
replacement in philosophy of the old "Sanctity of Life
Ethic" by the new "Quality of Life Ethic." In this new
ethic, a human life is judged as valuable and worth living
if and only if the judgers decide that it performs at a
certain level - e.g., a functional I.Q. of 60 or 40; or an
ability to relate to other people (it would logically follow
that a severely autistic person does not have enough
"quality" in his life to deserve to live); or the prospect of
a fairly normal, healthy and pain-free life (thus active
euthanasia, or assisted suicide, is justified). If someone
lacks the functional criteria of a "quality" life, he lacks
personhood and the right to life.

I find this ethic more terrifying than the ethic of the
Mafia, for the Mafia at least do not rationalize their
assassinations by inventing a new ethic which pretends
that the people they want to kill are not people. I would
feel more comfortable conversing with a hired killer than
with an abortionist, for an abortionist is also a hired
killer, but pretends not to be.

The Functionalism that is the basis of the "Quality of Life
Ethic" is morally reprehensible for at least three reasons.
First, it is degrading, demeaning and destructive to
human dignity; it treats persons like trained seals.
Second, it is elitist; it discriminates against less perfect
performers. Third, it takes advantage, it is power play, it
is might over right rationalized. To see this point, let us
dare to ask a very naive and simple question, a question
a child might ask, especially a child like the one in "The
Emperor´s New Clothes": Why do doctors kill fetuses
rather than fetuses killing doctors? Fetuses do not want
to die. They struggle to live. (I hope you have all seen
"The Silent Scream" and its sequel.) The answer is
power. Doctors have power, fetuses do not. If fetuses
came equipped with suction tubes, poisons, and scalpels
to use to defend themselves against their killers, there
would be no abortions.

The eventual social consequences of Functionalism are
George Bernard Shaw´s utopia of the future in which
each citizen would have to appear annually before a
Central Planning Committee to justify the social utility of
his or her (or its) existence, or else be painlessly
"terminated." That is the crotch of the Functionalist
camel whose nose is already under our tent. The nose is
abortion. The camel is all one piece. Let the nose in and
the rest will follow. To keep the camel out you must hit
it on the nose.

Returning to our logical analysis, let us now refute the
seven pro-choice arguments. First, the pro-choicers are
correct to claim that the "person" and "human being" are
not identical, but wrong to claim that the "human being"
is the broader category and "person" the narrower
subset. It is the other way round. There are persons
who are not human persons: the three Persons of the
Trinity, angels, and any rational and moral
extraterrestrials who may exist, such as the E.T.,
Martians, and someone who has never heard of the
Boston Red Sox. But though not all persons are human,
all humans are persons. Old humans are persons, very
young humans are per