This is probably one of my favorite topics to discuss and debate. I’ve got a lot to learn, but I feel like I’m fairly competent in discussing this issue and giving a good pro-life case (note the weasler fairly competent). I think one of the huge points of confusion in this debate comes when using terms such as human being, human nature, personhood, humanity, and human organism. These words have very different meanings in different contexts and this only asks for an equivocation to occur. Hence why I think defining one’s terms and usage of them before ever debating the issue is extremely crucial. Otherwise, you’ll just be tripping over your words and making a mess everywhere.
Personally, I hate treating personhood as if it’s some deciding factor for an individual to be counted as a person. See, my language already is assuming that there are human beings that are not persons, and this, I think, is problematic. Sadly, the philosophical community has assumed that a “person” is just a collection of traits that make one valuable. So, what I want to do is define my terms and proceed to explain my case for the pro-life exposition using thomistic language and metaphysics. In doing so, I will demonstrate why I have such a problem with this divide over personhood. Moreover, by using a Thomistic metaphysics, I will try and show that this “personhood” issue isn’t really an issue at all.
First of all, I think it’s pretty plausible to say that at a biological level we are a human organism (well, duh). Now, I’d like to state that I equate being a human being with having a human nature or essence, and a human nature belongs with that substance that is human, i.e., a human organism. There is a substance (the human organism), that has a nature (human nature), and this nature is what makes the organism a human being.
From the get go, metaphysically speaking, a human organism is a human being because it has a human nature, and these cannot be separated. You cannot have a human organism that does not have a human nature because then the organism would not be human. Having a human nature, then, is a necessary condition of being a human organism.
Now, to address this issue of personhood and when a fetus “gains personhood”, we turn to the concepts of act and potency. To say something is in “act” or to be actual is to describe the way something is. Feser, for example, uses a rubber ball to demonstrate this this. He explains how “among [the ball's] features are the ways it actually is: solid, round, red, and bouncy. These are different aspects of its ‘being’” (Feser 10). Potency is the way a thing potentially is. To continue Feser’s example a ball is potentially green or black if you were to paint it and it is potentially “gooey (if you melt it)” (Feser 10).
But potency just doesn’t mean a thing in actuality can possibly do anything or become anything. For something to be potential it means that the substance has these potencies built into it. Edward Feser explains it this way, “The potentialities Aristotle and Aquinas have in mind are ones rooted in a thing’s nature as it actually exists” ( Feser 11). So, while I have the potential to grow another 5 feet tall, I don’t have the potential to become a werewolf. The latter is not a potency that is a part of my nature. So potential is always inherent in the thing that is.
To take another example, a piece of chopped up wood cannot potentially be a steel ship. Why? First because the steel is an entirely different substance. The wood cannot change or become something that it does not have. To use a common sense example, I cannot give you what I do not have. The wood, however, has the potential to become a house, or an axe handle, or a wall. These things are potentialities that the wood can fulfill since its nature allows it to do so.
Now with these distinctions in place, I turn to the personhood issue and the properties that go along with it, the properties such as rationality, consciousness, self-awareness, volition, will, etc.
I’ve heard it said that a fetus might be biologically human, but it doesn’t have rationally or self-consciousness and thus doesn’t count as human. Already we have a problem here. The metaphysic is off and the assumption is that a human organism becomes a human being when it acquires some property such as rationality or self-consciousness (the common ones that are appealed to). First, I think we have plausible grounds to accept the metaphysic I’ve proposed. Scientifically we see that a human organism, from conception, if nourished properly and if it develops normally, it becomes a fully grown human organism with fully functional mental capacities. I think the substance view of human beings is quite possible. A thing or substance(human organism) contains a nature (human nature) that allows it to grow and develop into a fully functional thing (human being).
When a fetus grows into a baby, and a baby into a toddler, and the toddler into a child, why doesn’t the child gain some other property like non-rationality? Why does the child gain the property of rationality? This seems like a dull question to ask but I think it’s one that must be asked. Why doesn’t the child develop into a log cabin? Why not the property of having a butterfly mind? I think it’s very plausible to posit the answer to this as being because rationality moves from potential to actual, and potentiality can only exist in the thing itself, that is a human substance or organism. These properties that were named earlier (rationality, self-awareness, consciousness, etc.) are actualized or gained precisely because they are potential in the substance itself. The human organism contains these properties in a state of potency, and thus they are always in the substance just waiting to be actualized. So it’s wrongheaded to try and divorce these states and say that the fetus is not human because it doesn’t have these properties actualized when the fact of the matter is these properties can only be actualized if the substance is human in the first place!
Personhood doesn’t even become an issue because, as I said earlier, personhood is inherent in the nature of a human, and during development, its properties of rationality, consciousness, and awareness is in a state of potency. Given enough time and the proper nourishment, this fetus would continue its natural development and these properties will inevitably be actualized. It’s like me grabbing the bag of popcorn kernels form my cupboard and throwing them all away. “What in the world are you doing?!” My mother screams. “This isn’t popcorn so what’s the point of having it?” I respond. “You have to heat them up. It is popcorn, you just have to let them develop.” I think a more telling action would be for me to grab the kernels out of the microwave while it’s heating up and just to throw them away since they’re not “fully popcorn”. My actions would be plain stupid and absurd. Similarly, to just abort the fetus because it hasn’t developed its rationality (or any of the other properties) is equally stupid and absurd.
The rationalization that a fetus can be aborted because it doesn’t contain personhood is completely off chart and I’ll go as far as say it’s utterly absurd. We accept our humanity yet we deny our humanity on the basis that some do not have the properties we have simply because they weren’t given the time of day to develop them. I fail to see any intellectual viability with those who are in favor of abortion. I welcome any dialogue and I look forward to it. In the mean time, popcorn anyone?
Work Cited
Feser, Edward. Aquinas: a beginner’s guide. Oxford: Oneworld, 2009. Print.
