Garry WILLS: Life Begins When PERSON Begins, Not Conception

[UTUSN]

Hahaha. WILLS just blew a fundie out of the water and never looked back. He was on Book TV, there to talk about his new book (Henry ADAMS and the Making of America), but the first questioner asked him to talk about his Catholicism. He said he didn't want to do that too much because other people might want the time for the designated topic, but he said a few words, a very few words, on Catholicism.

The very next questioner was an even bigger showboater, listing THREE theological premises, starting with how animals-don't-have-a-soul, and finally getting to what he wanted to get, that LIFE begins at conception.

WILLS let him spout off, then said, "You're WRONG." (something like: ) "There is NOTHING in the Bible about when LIFE begins. It is not a THEOLOGICAL question. (St Agustine?) said there were THREE souls---vegetable, animal, and human. LIFE is not the point. The point is when someone BECOMES A PERSON. Sperm has LIFE; the ovum has LIFE. The sperm/ovum are not a PERSON."

The Fundie or whatever he was stood at the mic, totally humiliated, till the end of WILLS comments, when he turned on his heel and walked. It looked like he was going to walk out the door, but finally plopped himself in a chair near the door and crossed his legs.

[knowbody0]

1. just ask these guys

why no funerals for the miscarried

[MissMarple]

2. And why is there no life insurance for fetuses?

And if there were, at what point would it begin? Hmm....The insurance companies would have a hissy fit with the fundies answer on that one.

[electron_blue]

3. you probably don't want to ask that.

There are many funerals for the miscarried, especially if a woman went far enough along before miscarrying. When I had a late-ish miscarriage (only 9 weeks), my hospital had a service for it, even w/o my permission. It was a Catholic hospital, and the only one within 50 miles of where I live, so not like I had any choice to speak of.

[dsc]

5. Having a service for miscarried children

is very common as you point out.

[Spinzonner]

4. This is a distinction without a difference

and doesn't advance the discussion. It merely changes the terminology.

(And I'm pro-choice)

He hasn't defined 'Person'. Others could merely claim that a fertilized human ovum IS a person.

And someone might challenge the point about sperm or ovum having life. They can't even reproduce themselves like bacteria. One could even argue they are less life than virus's which, at least, can reproduce parasitically.

[UTUSN]

6. Smarty Pants. Well, WILLS Was There to Talk about Something Else

I haven't read him, but it sounds like he HAS addressed the issues elsewhere (I'll start looking). It sounded to my very lay ears that we were getting some help against the fundies, and my only point was to take pleasure in their public discomfiture in this particular venue.

[GreenPartyVoter]

7. I just had a discussion about this myself with a conservative over in my

blog. We kept it civil despite our differing opinions and didn't completely close the gap between our viewpoints, but it was nice to just be abel to talk about such a touchy subject without either person getting so riled that all we could do is call each other names.

http://www.livejournal.com/community/thought_express/14905.html

[Igel]

8. Singer. Peter.

He's a ethicist at Princeton. Arguing personhood is the key factor makes for some messy conclusions. He's come under fire for his views, and they've from time to time been misrepresented. I quote them below.

However, it should be pointed out that the difference between a fetus and a brand new newborn is, in fact, the source of their oxygen and a few other fairly trivial physiological functions. Note that the term necessary for viability, the old Roe standard, has so changed that fetuses that were once a lost cause are now fairly routinely saved as children.

In the absence of a definition of 'person', birth is a fairly important social idea; and that's where Singer, ultimately I think, takes it. But in terms of mental awareness and cognition, how most of us would define 'person' not so much: note the reasoning for Terri Schiavo, in which she was still biologically a person, and even DUers granted her a name. But it takes a while for the visual centers to even sort themselves out, and a number of other autonomic functions are a bit shakey at first. Higher cognition--on the order of what a mouse can do--takes longer. Until months after birth.

I think Wills argument gets him part of where he wants to go: to argue that abortion's not killing a person. But it becomes fairly hard to argue that a 4-month-old baby is a person, on the same terms.

http://www.princeton.edu/~psinger/faq.html
========
Q. You have been quoted as saying: "Killing a defective infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Sometimes it is not wrong at all." Is that quote accurate?

A. It is accurate, but can be misleading if read without an understanding of what I mean by the term “person” (which is discussed in Practical Ethics, from which that quotation is taken). I use the term "person" to refer to a being who is capable of anticipating the future, of having wants and desires for the future. As I have said in answer to the previous question, I think that it is generally a greater wrong to kill such a being than it is to kill a being that has no sense of existing over time. Newborn human babies have no sense of their own existence over time. So killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living. That doesn’t mean that it is not almost always a terrible thing to do. It is, but that is because most infants are loved and cherished by their parents, and to kill an infant is usually to do a great wrong to its parents.
Sometimes, perhaps because the baby has a serious disability, parents think it better that their newborn infant should die. Many doctors will accept their wishes, to the extent of not giving the baby life-supporting medical treatment. That will often ensure that the baby dies. My view is different from this, only to the extent that if a decision is taken, by the parents and doctors, that it is better that a baby should die, I believe it should be possible to carry out that decision, not only by withholding or withdrawing life-support – which can lead to the baby dying slowly from dehydration or from an infection - but also by taking active steps to end the baby’s life swiftly and humanely.

Q. What about a normal baby? Doesn’t your theory of personhood imply that parents can kill a healthy, normal baby that they do not want, because it has no sense of the future?

A. Most parents, fortunately, love their children and would be horrified by the idea of killing it. And that’s a good thing, of course. We want to encourage parents to care for their children, and help them to do so. Moreover, although a normal newborn baby has no sense of the future, and therefore is not a person, that does not mean that it is all right to kill such a baby. It only means that the wrong done to the infant is not as great as the wrong that would be done to a person who was killed. But in our society there are many couples who would be very happy to love and care for that child. Hence even if the parents do not want their own child, it would be wrong to kill it.
==================

[UTUSN]

9. Whoa, I'm in Deeper Than My Personhood Can Handle

But the SCHIAVO part penetrated through to me. Since I'm pro-choice in all areas, including end-of-life DECISIONS, the key element has to be "consciousness" in the sense of AWARENESS (but my dogs have consciousness, too). Does this mean that personhood can be attained, and then LOST?

I'm going to be gone for a few hours on other personhood tasks, am not running away.