Personhood

One central argument against abortion may be put like this:
• It is wrong to kill an innocent human being.
• A human foetus is an innocent human being.
• Therefore it is wrong to kill a human foetus.

Notice the emphasis on the foetus as a human being. Those who hold that abortion is
morally defensible often deny the second premise that the foetus is a human being. Peter
Singer holds that the right to life is grounded in personhood and that a person is someone
who has the ability to plan and anticipate one’s future. Since the unborn foetus lacks this,
he states that abortion can be ‘justified’ in certain special circumstances. The problem
with this is that definition of ‘personhood’ is that it excludes many of those whom we
would wish to call ‘persons’ e.g. infants and the severely disabled. How then is personhood
determined?

Mary Anne Warren suggests the following criteria for ‘personhood’:
• Sentience – the ability to have conscious experiences
• Emotionality – the ability to feel happy, sad, loving
• Reason – the ability to solve new and complex problems
• The capacity to communicate
• Self-awareness – awareness of oneself as an individual and as a member of a social
group
• Moral agency – the ability to regulate one’s actions through moral principles
Warren explains that it is not necessary to have all of these attributes – many people do
not meet all the criteria for personhood and are still considered persons. However, a
foetus does not have any of these attributes and is not a person (though some do develop
in later foetuses (e.g. the ability to feel pain). One solution is to regard the foetus as a
potential person. Looking at the foetus as a potential person removes some of the difficult
speculations about when the foetus has a soul or develops consciousness. Nevertheless,
Warren rejects ‘potential personhood’ as a basis for giving the foetus a right to life.

Thinking point: how would you define personhood? If a foetus is a potential person, how do
we determine when it becomes a potential person? Is it right to judge a foetus by what it
might be?