(The following is a post by guest blogger, Lowell Mcdonald)

If you want to make a friend or enemy quickly, bring up abortion. Abortion is at the very center off our so-called culture war ever since the infamous Roe v. Wade decision handed down from the Supreme Court in 1973. I, for one, think that the vitriol that accompanies this debate is justified, for the argument about abortion is, at its heart, an argument about what it means to be human. Should you disagree with me, consider the fact that the slavery debate was also essentially about human nature (is the African a human being, or an animal that I can use alongside my cattle?)and we ended that debate in a bloody war. In the Civil War, people bled and died, each believing that it was either good or evil to own a slave. Yet, consider that alternative: had blood not been shed, American slavery, the most oppressive and cruel regime of slavery ever seen on the face of the earth, might very well still be a reality in modern America. The argument about abortion is important because, once again, human rights hang in the balance.

Many philosophers understand this and use the abortion debate to advance various accounts of human personhood, some of which, I will argue are at odds with a very important piece of moral real estate- namely, human equality.

When talking about human equality, one must beware of equivocation, for there are several different senses in which one can use the word.  When we proclaim ‘all men are created equal’, we must pose the question ‘equal in what way?’ When your average Joe uses the word in a moral way referring to human beings he is referring to a metaphysical reality: regardless of one’s accidental properties (height, skin color, sex, rationality, level of development, wealth or lack thereof, etc.) every human being is essentially equal, i.e., we are all equally human. This is handed down to use from the classical liberal tradition. Philosopher R.J. Snell argues, “Classical liberal theory grounded natural rights in “substantial equality,” as French political theorist Philippe Bénéton terms it…the liberal taught that humans were equal in their humanity. All were equal in their substance even if differing in religion, politics, class, race, sex, ability, and so on.”[1]

Functionalism, as a philosophical paradigm of human personhood, rejects this, claiming a distinction between being a human being, and being a person. Not all humans are persons, say the functionalists. Functionalists ground human personhood not in an immaterial essence, but rather in a specific set or group of presently exercisable capacities. Though many different philosophers have proposed different lists over the years, I shall here only consider two: Peter Singer and Mary Ann Warren.

Warren,  in her essay “On The Moral and Legal Status of Abortion” holds fast to the person/human distinction. For Warren, the entities that have moral worth are part of what she calls the “moral community”, including those who exhibit at least the five following characteristics:

  1. Consciousness
  2. Reasoning
  3. Self-motivated activity
  4. The capacity to communicate
  5. The presence of self-concepts and self-awareness

Warren argues, “All we need to claim, to demonstrate that a fetus is not a person, is that any being which satisfies none of 1-5 is certainly not a person.”

Moving on to Peter Singer, we find in him another philosopher sympathetic to the human/person distinction. Says Singer, “To describe a being as human is to use a term that straddles two distinct notions: membership of the species homo sapiens, and being a person, in the sense of a rational or self-conscious being…one cannot plausibly argue that a foetus  is either rational or self-conscious.”[2] These to functions-rationality and self-consciousness- are Singer’s chosen criteria for personhood.

These criteria, if adopted, threaten human personhood in the following way: the functions chosen by Warren, Singer and virtually all other functionalists can all be described as degreed properties, meaning that these properties can be more or less developed.  If personhood is contingent upon the possession and expression of a degreed property, does it not follow that the higher the degree of expression, the more of a person one is, creating a caste system? Philosophers J.P. Moreland and Scott B. Rae argue convincingly: “[An]…implication of the functional view of personhood is that personhood ends up being a degreed property. Whatever function or functions one suggests as determinative of personhood, virtually all of them are expressed in degrees. One develops the key set of functions and later in life losses them, so by implication one’s rights would correspondingly be more or less protected.”[3] Catholic philosopher J. Budzisewski echoes the critique, saying “…People are not entitled to absolute regard unless they can do certain things like feel, think, have friendships, ponder themselves, and carry out their plans- unless they can exercise capacities like sentience, cognition, self-awareness, sociality, and  ‘full deliberative rationality.’ Should someone be deficient in these respects, extinguishing him becomes a moral possibility, even if he is human.”[4]

Those who want to push the abortion rights agenda had better think long and hard about the implications of that agenda. Consider this: many feminists push for abortion under the banner of equality with men (they want to be able to terminate a pregnancy whenever they see fit because men never have to worry with pregnancy to begin with.)Yet, equality is just what is destroyed should their argument succeed.

[1]See R.J. Snell “The Shock of Recognition”

[2] See Peter Singer “Abortion”

[3] See Moreland and Rae “Body and Soul: Human Nature and the Crises in Ethics.

[4] See J. Budzisewski “The Line Through the Heart: Natural Law as Fact, Theory, and Sign of Contradiction