Has SCIENCE ever weighed in on the issue of "personhood"?

[SemiCharmedQuark]

Lately more and more and more, even in liberal bastions, it seems that the issue of the fetus as a person is pushed. People are entitled to their beliefs, but it really chaps my ass when they have to drag science into it.
One trick is to say "Life begins at conception". This is true, I suppose, in a way. However what is "life"? A sperm cell is a living thing. An ovum is a living thing. So really, life exists before conception. Hell, a skin cell is a living thing. Just because something is living, does not make it a person.
Did I miss something? Has science ever weighed in collectively on personhood other than to say "we don't know"?
Again, if your beliefs prevent YOU from having an abortion, that's your right. If you want to argue for your point of view without forcing your views on others, that's your right. However, I really hate the use of science to promote what is not a scientific question.

[MonkeyFunk]

1. No

because it's not a scientific question - it's a legal one.

[Jackpine Radical]

2. And a philosophical one.

[aikoaiko]

3. I support a woman's right to choose an abortion or not.

I have to say that or someone will jump all over me.

I think the response to your living sperm argument would be "Life begins at conception" is short for, in regards to this issue, "human life begins at conception".

As far as science and personhood goes, nothing yet although the issue of viability is a troublesome one for the pro-choice position.

[msmcghee]

9. I still think the OP makes a good point.

Both the ovum and sperm are living human cells. They are both living entities. They join together in the act of sexual reproduction. That joining makes the composite cell they create capable of splitting trillions of times under a specific plan carried within the dna of those cells to form a human carrying the characteristics of both of those cells. Why should the event of a sperm penetrating the cell wall of an ovum signify "human life" - but all the other "life events" before and after that singular event - not be considered human life?

Is it because that view supports the conclusion that abortion is immoral?

[Az]

4. Yes and no

It has provided us with the information by which we can discern the answers to this question but it has never tried to assert an answer in this particular question.

Studies of the brain/mind have shown that there is no person present until there is a cerebrum. The cerebrum is necessary for self awareness to arise. The cerebrum does not begin to develop in the fetus until some time in the third trimester. So scientifically speaking there is no person present until at least some time in the third trimester after the cerebrum has formed. Even then we are not certain that a person is present because the mere presence of a cerebrum does not mean a mind has formed. The brain has to collect experience and observations and begin to integrate them into its structure in order for awareness to begin to form. But from a biological stand point the minimum necessary point at which we can deduce that a person/mind might be present is when the cerebrum is developed.

[valerief]

5. And what's their take on the Corporation as a person?

[cyborg_jim]

6. It cannot be answered scientifically

Because ultimately words like 'life', 'person' and so forth represent nothing more than useful lies that pretend that such things are absolute where in reality there is clearly a continuum. (For example: "Are viruses alive? Is a zygote a person?" Such questions stretch the assumptions of the word that a clear and concise binary decision can be made for concepts that are built up on a multitude of different properties.)

[EFerrari]

10. It can't be answered scientifically because "personhood"

is a subjectively perceived situation.

[cyborg_jim]

17. It's not so much that it's subjective...

It's that if we are to analyse what personhood is then we will probably identify a set of properties. Now the problems always come when someone fails to have all the properties - they only have some. That's where the real identification problems come in.

[EFerrari]

23. Well, what about slaves? Or little girls in some cultures or

the fact that a baby has to learn to literally sort itself out from mom in those very early months? To differentiate between the arms that holds it and the face that watches it? To establish its own "personhood"?

It is subjective and, culturally construed as well. If you and I could agree on a set of properties, it's because we're from roughly the same culture unlike those Snakes Over the Hill. :)

[mondo joe]

7. I do not believe abortion rights depend on when "life begins", but on the right of a woman

over her own body.

[JDPriestly]

8. Is an apple on a tree life? Yes, in the sense that it is "alive," but

no, in the sense that it cannot exist once it falls from the tree. Not until the flesh of the fruit disintegrates leaving the seed in the ground, and not until the seed sprouts and extends its stem, the beginning of the trunk of the future tree above the ground, is it a "life." It is a tree only when takes the form of a tree and can survive on its own.

[Hamlette]

11. Doctors "wrote" Roe v Wade. In that sense they weighed in on the issue.

read the decision. It says until a fetus is viable (capable of life outside the womb) the mother has some rights that should be considered in the equation. They probably should have written it more as a civil rights test than a privacy test but the reasoning is sound.

Once a fetus is viable, the woman's rights have to be balanced against the rights of the viable fetus. If its life or death for the mom, she wins. If not, state law can limit her right. (3rd trimester issue)

It's not a definition of personhood but as close as science and law can get on such a question.

[cgrindley]

13. Well said. People should read you post.

I sometimes despair that people seem so uninformed on just what the situation with abortion is. There are a number of people here who believe that there exists in law some sort of absolute right for a woman to have an abortion, and that's just never been true.

[Hamlette]

14. basically it is an absolute right in the first two trimesters

the fetus doesn't have rights until it becomes viable. Up to that point it is up to the mother and the state can't "unduly" interfere with her right to have an abortion.

[cgrindley]

15. Is that even really 100% true?

In the second trimester, isn't a doctor's okay generally more difficult to obtain? Doesn't it then *have* to be a matter of the mother's health?

[Hamlette]

20. no, in the 2nd trimester it is up to the woman alone

under Roe. That hasn't changed. The latest case said states can outlaw certain procedures (so called partial birth abortion) and there may be some legal parental notification laws. But it is up to the woman.

Doctors don't have to "okay" anything (except 3rd trimester) but of course you have to find a doc willing to perform an abortion. That is becoming more difficult in some states.

[cgrindley]

12. Well, it's pretty obvious that each individual starting with conception

is a unique "person", that is a unique combination of DNA, but I don't see how it's a matter that should really interest science. This is just an emotion issue.

my feeling is that yes, a fetus is a living thing, a unique person, but that it can be murdered for convenience or health or medical reasons or because it suffers from a variety of genetic abnormalities... at least until a certain point in its development is reached. That point is where it becomes viable outside the womb. No more unrestrained fetus murder after that. Before that point though, it's a woman's choice whether or not to kill her fetus. But it's goofy as all get out to think that a person wouldn't be killing something when they abort a fetus.

[BlooInBloo]

16. "person" is the province of philosophy. "Living", "human", etc. are the province of science...

... (for the most part, of course.)

[Jed Dilligan]

18. One biological principle that may be applicable

is "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny." Which, in my understanding, puts abortion on about the same ethical level as eating pork.

[Clintonista2]

19. In highschool my philosophy class had an abortion debate and

I came across an article about how a group of scientists/scholars/philosophers once got together, and tried to determine when life begins. They concluded that since life ENDS when brain activity ends, life must BEGIN when brain activity begins, which occurs during the 5'th month of pregnancy. The article also said that something like 99.98% of abortions occur before the 5th month. I thought that it was a very well reasoned argument, using science as a guide.

[alarimer]

21. You are a person when you are born, not before

Before that you are what amounts to a parasite, living off its host.

And you can't really say when life begins, because every cell in your body is alive or at least was alive (in the case of hair) at some point. So it is sort of a continuum from whenever the first human was born. Actually you can't even say that because, who knows who was the "first" human. Now I've given myself a headache.

So I guess legally, it's best to say that you are person when you are born and can survive outside the womb. Not before. Not at conception. Therefore it is NOT a double murder if someone kills a pregnant woman.

[slowry]

22. 5 minutes before birth? n/t

[cgrindley]

24. That's laughably extreme

parasite eh? my wife will have a good laugh about that...

PS no one really thinks that in real life, right?

[bemildred]

25. "person" == "soul". Get it now?

It's essentially a religious point of view. Life began 4 billion years ago, and we are all ephemeral parts of that continuous process.