PBA105H: Personhood and Human Rights

• Do you believe in human rights? Shouldn't all human beings have human rights?
  • subjectivity of personhood= works better in the functionalism seminar
• Basic argument for personhood
  • Size
  • Level of Development
  • Environment
  • Degree of Dependency
• Abortion as age-based discrimination, a human rights violation
  • Personhood poster

content from TRTL Abortion Presentation - polish + condense

• Some people may agree with you that, scientifically, pre-born children are human beings like you and I. However, many abortion supporters will still argue that the pre-born are not equal to born human beings–that is, that they are not persons. They claim that since the pre-born cannot think or behave like those who are born, abortion is acceptable because it merely kills non-persons. These individuals will point out that the pre-born differ so much from the born.
  • How? What are some of the ways that pre-born humans differ from born humans?
  • All of these differences break down into four basic categories, into the acronym SLED:
    • Size
    • Level of Development
    • Environment
    • Degree of Dependency
  • Let's ask two things:
    1. Do these differences only exist before birth, or do they continue after birth too?“
    2. Do any of these differences determine whether or not we should get basic human rights, like the right to life?

Let's examine the categories:

• Size:
  • For example, an embryo is smaller and less developed than an infant.
  • You don't stop growing and developing when you're born, but you growing until… when? When you're an adult. An embryo is smaller and less developed than an infant, and an infant is smaller and less developed than a teenager.
  • And, does how big you are determine whether or not you have basic human rights? Bigger humans don't have more of a right to life than smaller humans.
• Level of Development:
  • Embryos and fetuses are undoubtedly less developed than newborn babies. But aren't newborns also less developed than toddlers, and toddlers less developed than teenagers? And aren't some adult humans less cognitively or physically developed because of factors like disability?
  • And why should our level of development matter when it comes to whether or not we get human rights?
• Environment: “Or take environment, an embryo is within her mother's body while the infant is outside.”
  • “Sure, your environment changes when you're born, but it changes many times throughout your life.”
  • And where you are does not determine who or what you are.
    • For example, take two children at the same age, both 24 weeks, but one is still living in her mother's womb and the other is born prematurely and is living in an incubator. Are they not both equally human? Why should one have basic human rights, but not the other?
• Degree of Dependency: “What about dependency? An embryo needs her mother's body in a way an infant doesn't”
  • Have you ever help a newborn baby? A newborn isn't exactly independent! An infant is way more dependent than a teenager.”
    • “A newborn baby might still be dependent on his mother's body to live, for example, with breastfeeding”
    • “We don't become independent until well after birth.”
  • “Do people who are more dependent have fewer basic rights? Actually, the more dependent someone is, the greater our responsibility towards them!”
    • “Say your toddler says to you, 'mommy, I need water.' Should you get it for her?”
    • “Okay, fast forward 15 years and say she's coming back home after a semester in residence at university, and says, 'mom, get me a glass of water.' Are you obligated to get it for her? She can get it herself!”
    • “The more dependent someone is, the more responsibility we have towards them”
• “If you think carefully about why there are these differences between embryos and infants, between infants and teenagers, it's all a function of age” Next step: SLED = f(age)
  • “Why is a pre-born child smaller? What size should any member of our species be at that age?”
  • “Why is a pre-born child still in her mother's womb? Where else is the natural place for any member of our species be at that age?” * “Why is a pre-born child more dependent? How independent should any member of our species be at that age?”
  • (address Level of Development) “Why is a pre-born child less developed? How developed should any member of our species be at that age?”
    • “Why can a child not feel pain until about halfway through pregnancy?”
    • “Why can't a child survive outside the womb until about halfway through pregnancy?”
      • “Well, our medical technology is only so advanced – it used to be later in pregnancy before a child could survive outside the womb, in the future maybe it's earlier in pregnancy”
      • “But, given our medical technology, what else would we expect for a human being of that age?”
    • “Why are brain waves measurable at six weeks? How developed should someone's brain be at that age? The human brain isn't fully developed until your mid-20s!”
    • “Why does the human heart start beating three weeks after fertilization? When should any human being's heart start beating?”

Transition: These differences are all just age differences – not differences that matter in terms of basic human rights, like the right to life. Clearly, to select age-related criteria for personhood is arbitrary and discriminatory. It pits older humans against younger ones.

• “Maybe you're still thinking, okay, but, a fetus still just isn't a person! Well, what's a person?” (ask the audience, collect a few answers if offered)
• (frame the concept 'human + x') “Any definition of a person that doesn't include all human beings is a grave violation of human rights.”

Next step: human + x “While today the term personhood is often used to describe someone as “self-aware” or “rational,” historically other criteria were used. Personhood has been defined using sex, skin colour, ethnicity and other arbitrary distinctions. Whenever we say that, to be a person, to get your basic human rights, you have to be a 'human being plus x', that just being a human being isn't good enough, that's the formula for injustice, a formula for a grave human rights violation.”

• “We can see this throughout history, that every time we've said that to be a person, you need to be a “human + x”, it's been a catastrophic moral mistake…”
  • Next step: Virginia Supreme Court
    • “In the eyes of the law… the slave is not a person.” –Virginia Supreme Court decision, 1858
    • “To be a person, you had to be a human being plus white skin”
  • Next step: George Canfield
    • “An Indian is not a person within the meaning of the Constitution.” –George Canfield, American Law Review, 1881
    • “Here, a person was a human being plus non-indigenous”
  • Next step: racism “We know this today as racism.”
    • “I want to tell you a story. This is Ota Benga, a Congolese man who was bought from slavers in 1904, taken to America and put on display in the Bronx Zoo in 1906.”
      • “A sign on the exhibit read: The African Pigmy, “Ota Benga.” Age, 23 years. Height, 4 feet 11 inches. Weight, 103 pounds. Brought from the Kasai River, Congo Free State, South Central Africa, by Dr. Samuel P. Verner. Exhibited each afternoon during September.”
      • “The exhibit quickly became the zoo's most popular attraction, but protests from African-American clergymen had it shut down.”
      • “I think of Ota Benga whenever people say that a human being “doesn't look like a person”. People thought that Ota Benga didn't look like a person, but how else is someone of his ethnic background supposed to look?”
        • “People say that a pre-born child “doesn't look like a person,” but how else is someone of that age supposed to look?”
  • Next step: racism overview “But it doesn't stop with racism.”
  • Next step: British Voting Rights case
    • “The statutory word ‘person’ did not in these circumstances include women.” –British Voting Rights case, 1909
    • “To be a person, you had to be a human being plus a man.”
    • Next step: sexism “We know this today as sexism”
  • Next step: Nazi Germany
    • “The Reichsgericht itself refused to recognize Jews… as ‘persons’ in the legal sense.” –German Supreme Court decision, 1936
    • “To be a person, you have to be a human being plus non-Jew”
    • “We know this today as anti-semitism”
  • Next step: Canadian Supreme Court
    • “The law of Canada does not recognize the unborn child as a legal person possessing rights.” –Canadian Supreme Court, Winnipeg Child and Family Services Case, 1997
    • “To be a person in Canada, you have to be a human being plus a certain age”
    • “This is ageism, age-based discrimination”
  • Next step: human being + x = human rights violation “Whenver we see this pattern, that to be a person you need to be a 'human being + x', it's the pattern of a grave human rights violation”
  • Next step: human being + age “With abortion, it's “human + a certain age” – it's just age-based discrimination, or ageism”

– The history of legal personhood is “A nice little narrative of oppression, discrimination, and even genocide” - Justina Van Manen

• CCBR Lesson 2: How We Value Humans
• Signal Hill SLED video
• Patrick Lee essay?