Is Abortion a Moral Right or Morally Wrong: Lack self-awareness? Failed the personhood test!

Scott Klusendorf discusses the issue of whether the unborn embryo or fetus is a person and interacts with an abortion rights proponent who so happens to be religious. Paul D. Simmons, who authored “Personhood, the Bible, and the Abortion Debate” published by the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, argues that even though the unborn is biologically a human being, it is not a person for the fact it does not possess self-awareness and consequently is not made in God’s image. He writes, “No one can deny the continuum from fertilization to maturity and adulthood. That does not mean, however, that every step on the continuum has the same value or constitutes the same entity… A person has capacities of reflective choice, relational responses, social experience, moral perception, and self-awareness.” (Ibid.) 

And consequently, since the unborn does not possess these attributes, he is not a person. There are at least two problems with this argument. First, infanticide is morally permissible on these grounds. Peter Singer, an infanticide proponent, scolds abortion rights advocates for being inconsistent in their measuring rod for determining who is a person and who isn’t. In Practical Ethics he writes, “ If self-awareness makes one valuable as a person, and newborns, like fetuses, lack that property, it follows that the fetus and newborn are both disqualified. You can’t draw an arbitrary line at birth and spare the newborn.” (Singer 169-171).

Moreover, I think we have an argument that reveals the absurdity of this criterion for personhood:

•     Any entity that lacks the immediate capacity for consciousness is not a person and may be killed without the need for morally justifying reasons.
• ·      Unborns, newborns, toddlers, comatose, and victims of irreversible brain damage lack the immediate capacity for consciousness.
• ·      Therefore unborns, newborns, toddlers, comatose, and victims of irreversible brain damage are not persons and may be killed without the need for morally justifying reasons.

Unless one is prepared to pronounce other post-born entities as not persons and justify killing them via whatever means possible or conducive, I insist that the self-awareness criterion be put to rest. But in any case, there are two mistakes I observe in the argument from self-awareness. First, the argument equivocates on the notion of capacity. Whenever I have read papers arguing for abortion rights, I almost rarely or never see any attempt by philosophers to clarify what they mean by having a capacity for consciousness or self-awareness. There are two kinds of capacities in being able to do something: basis or inherent and immediate or direct. To have the basic capacity to do something is being enabled to do that act by virtue of the kind of thing you are and the possession of certain innate features that potentially ground that ability. Let me give an example.

I have an inherent capacity to shoot a basketball because I have hands, arms, legs, and muscles. But just because I have the basic capacity to shoot a basketball with my arms, hands, and jump with my leg muscles does not mean I can exercise that ability immediately. I possibly have not exercised those bodily parts to the extent to where I have enough strength to actually shoot a basketball. The same reasoning can be applied to learning and speaking new language. I have the basic capacity to learn and speak a new language because I have a mind, can read, and can speak. But just because I have those features doesn’t entail that I can learn and speak a language immediately. I will have to read, practice memorizing and speaking certain words as I learn new words along the way. Likewise for the unborn, if lacking the immediate ability to exercise self-awareness disqualifies it from being a person, then I am disqualified from having a mind, eyes, and mouth simply because I cannot immediately speak a new language. But that is absurd.

Even more fundamentally, there is another flaw in this criterion from personhood. The argument takes it for granted that a basic capacity for any development or exercisable property is already present in the unborn. Let me explain. In saying that because the unborn does not possess the immediate capacity to exercise self-awareness, and claiming it is not a person, the argument has decided that having a certain nature that grounds certain abilities is irrelevant as to whether such abilities will ever arise. In other words, the unborn has the potential to exercise these properties even though it cannot currently exercise them. Were it not for the unborn having a certain nature that grounded these abilities to even be possible or potential, these properties or abilities would never come about. The ability to exercise these properties could be seen as a sign of growth, maturity, or improvement that enhances the unborn’s level of function.

It would be almost like saying that even though I can shoot a basketball; I currently cannot dunk a ball into the hoop. I have the potential to do that because of the kind of body I have and because with enough hard work I might be able to do that. But without having a body or being able to exercise, I will never be able to dunk. The same applies to the unborn.