When do we become human? When do we gain human rights? What is a human, anyway?
In November, 2023, the Ohio abortion amendment appeared on the ballot as Issue 1. In the weeks leading up to the election the issue was hotly debated in the Dayton Daily News, with most articles trying to portray the other side as extremists. The following article focuses on the philosophical issues of when the entity developing in the womb becomes human and gains human rights. It was submitted to the newspaper, but not accepted for publication.
The real question lurking in Issue 1 is not about the extreme cases like partial birth abortion and child rape, horrible though both of these are. The real question is when does one become a human being. Not in the biological sense of having human DNA, but in the moral sense of becoming a person with rights, among them the right to life.
Issue 1 would, in effect, draw the line between human and not-yet-human at the time the fetus is capable of surviving outside the womb (viability). It is evident that this is nonsense, because viability depends on the quality of medical care. Today, in the U.S., viability typically comes at around 23–24 weeks gestational age. Fifty years ago, it came later; fifty years ahead, we may expect it will come earlier. In poorer countries, it comes later. Civil rights may, but human rights cannot, depend on where and when you live.
The fetus is adapted for life in the womb, not for life outside. How can we say that it is okay to cast a person into a hostile environment—up until the time when she is fit to survive in that environment? It is like saying you may throw a man overboard from a ship— as long as he is not able to swim or breathe water; or eject a woman from a flying plane—for as long as she is not able to sprout wings of her own and fly. That is exactly backwards!
Well, of course, that’s assuming it’s a human being. What is it to be human? What does it take to be a person? We must face this philosophical question if we are to think intelligently and responsibly about abortion. Some say the fetus is not a person because it has not developed a sufficient level of consciousness: it has no plans, no concept of self. (So if you go to sleep or lose consciousness, do you stop being a person?) Among them, Professors Michael Tooley and Peter Singer honestly draw the hard but logical conclusion: newborns and infants are also not persons; infanticide is permitted. Tooley urges us to accept this, because the civilized ancient Romans allowed infanticide—forgetting that the civilized Romans also practiced slavery, torture, and cruel punishments.
What, then, is it to be a human person? Is it not to be an “individual being of a rational nature”, as Boethius wrote— a nature which is able to know the truth and love the good? Young children possess a rational nature, but they are not yet actually rational. Many adults, and not a few old men, “know” many untruths and love bad things. (I’m 72 and still have much to learn to be a wise and good person—as my wife keeps reminding me!) Isn’t it obvious that being human is a project, in which we can progress and regress, some of us excelling and some failing miserably?
That project begins when the ovum unites with a sperm to form a new living being, a being which from that time onwards is engaged in the project of becoming actually rational, first growing and developing its body, then its mind. That project of coming to know the real and love the good begins at conception and goes on for long after birth. That project is a human life.
Viability, whether at 23–24 weeks or earlier or later, is the wrong line to draw. A human being exists long before that. Vote NO on Issue 1.