On personhood

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To preface: The fact that abortion ends human life is not subject to opinion, it is scientific fact as I will describe in a moment. Defining it as murder or even manslaughter is murky, however, due to the issue of legal personhood and the right to body autonomy. The fact that I, personally, would choose to not abort and also recognize the scientific fact of embryonic human life (which is not my rationale for that choice, just to be clear) does not mean that I expect everyone else to have that particular comfort zone.
False dichotomies are awesome, guys! 
That's right... you can be pro-choice and "pro-life" at the same time! :iconzoominplz:
Further:  I am defining "human life" as human cells that are alive and part of an individual. This is to counteract this general idea that mostly "pro-choice" people seem to have come up with that the cells that comprise an embryo are somehow dead by virtue of not being biologically independent. To be honest, realizing that that was an argument I was using when I identified strictly as "pro-choice" and that it was not only scientifically incorrect but dehumanizing and had all kinds of nasty ramifications when thinking about things like people with disabilities and children's rights, I started to understand that the root issue with abortion has NEVER been about whether or not it is murder. The fact that the accusation was made was the very reason the dehumanizing argument came up when really that point shouldn't have been addressed at all because it's not only untrue but completely irrelevant.

 The concept of personhood is distinct from the concept of humanity and the concept of life
Life is cellular activity, at its most basic level. If something is made of cells that are metabolizing and dividing, it is what we define as alive (with some questionable wiggle room for viruses and some other things along that line). By that qualification, an embryo is alive.
Humanity is being a human by species, at its most basic level. If something has human DNA, it is human. This doesn't necessitate it being "a" human, as in an entire human individual. Therefore all cells that are alive and have human DNA are "human life" but that does not make them "a" human. By that qualification, an embryo is human, and in fact human life.
Personhood is where things start to get fuzzy. Personhood is not a scientific concept, but rather a philosophical and legal one. It pertains to the question of who or what has rights, rights being also something that do not actually exist but are abstract philosophical concepts. Generally speaking, there are certain criteria that, if met, mean that something is a "person." These involve being alive, being self-aware, and expressing will. Those, if all met, are what most people would agree comprise a person at the most basic level. By this qualification, an embryo is NOT a person as currently defined.

However, these criteria may be flawed or incomplete. The issues I mentioned before, such as babies, children, and humans with some disabilities are all cases in which the signals are mixed because they may not possess all of the criteria but most are recognized, at least legally, as being "people" in some or all aspects. And the dead are a whole other can of worms because that brings the element of time into the equation... as in, if a person exists at one point and expresses a will about what happens when they do not exist which must be honored while they exist, when they no longer exist does that obligation continue?
In other words, is there such a thing as a "previous" person, and if so does that also mean there is such a thing as a "potential" person? And in either case, what would the ramifications of that be?

And to restate for clarity... the reason why this is not about abortion, but rather is related on a philosophical basis, is that even in the case of absolute certainty that an embryo can be considered a person, the concept of body autonomy would necessarily mean that it is not immoral for an abortion to occur even if it results in the death of a person.





So, that said...
How would you define legal personhood?

Hint: Consider cases of in utero, young children, mental/physical disability, vegetative coma, and postmortem.
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