Re: [asa] Worthy of response?

"I had said: The medical data that indicates fairly clearly that an
entity prior to
implantation is not a person is as follows:

David O posted:

        "I think that is too strong a statement."

We must disagree, then, on that claim.

        "The data you cite certainly suggest that the concept of
"personhood" is difficult to apply prior to implantation."

I understand your use of a milder term. Perhaps it would help if I agreed
that the data, while "clear," is not a rock solid 100% proof. It is, as
are so many concepts in this area, always provisional.

        "However, the notion of "personhood," IMHO, ultimately is not
something that can be conclusively determined one way or the other by
these sorts of empirical observations."

We can, on that basis, never have conclusive proof of such things. But
none the less we have to (sometimes) bet on what looks the most likely.
That is all I am doing.

         "Personhood" ultimately is an ethical value judgment based on
both present and potentential aspects of the entity."

I cannot agree. The Nazis made an ethical judgement that Jews were not
persons. That did not make them not persons. A person is a person
regardless of any ethical judgements made by others.

        "I would argue that the potentiality of a not-yet-implanted human
zygote gives it a kind of dignity that requires us (a) not to discard it
without very good reason; and (b) not to create it without the intention
to bring it to term if possible."

I have not argued otherwise.

        "As to "ensoulment," the fact that a zygote that has the
potential to split into two entities before implantation, it seems to me,
does not decide the question one way or the other. If the "soul" is an
entirely immaterial substance that God implants in the womb, and if God
knows beforehand whether a given zygote will split into two entities
before implantation, then it seems entirely possible that God gives that
zygote two souls before it splits, with one going each way as it were.
And if the two entities subsequently fuse, it would seem that God is
capable of accounting for that in advance as well when he does the
ensoulement."

The problem with this explanation is that is (I think) entirely ad hoc.
Or perhaps there is supporting evidence for it?

        "But I'd also suggest that the notion of "ensoulement" perhaps
isn't very helpful. It analogizes the soul to a material substance that
would be injected, so to speak, into the zygote / fetus / baby at a fixed
time in its development. That makes what is essentially a spiritual
property too much like something material."

Good point.

        " Rather than searching for a specific time of "ensoulment," I'd
suggest that we advocate respect for human life from its very start to
its very end -- which means, at least, not taking active measures to
terminate human potentiality."

As in most discussions of this nature, the devil is in the details. Above
you said "without very good reasons" and we might debate endlessly about
what those reasons might be. AT the end, we would have to agree to
disagree.

Thanks for the dialing.

Burgy

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Received on Tue Sep 4 11:48:13 2007