Abstract
In discussions of abortion policy, the premature ultimate is ‘humanity.’ Does the fetus possess ‘humanity’? How does one go about deciding whether a living being possesses it? And what rights go with such possession? These and similar questions have arisen beginning with the earliest speculations about human origins and characteristics. They are still thought central to the abortion debate. I propose to show in this paper that they cannot help us come to grips with the problem of abortion; indeed they obfuscate all discussion in this domain and lend themselves to dangerous interpretations precisely because of their obscurity.
“The temptation to introduce premature ultimates—Beauty in Aesthetics, the Mind and its faculties in Psychology, Life in Physiology, are representative examples-is especially great for believers in Abstract Entities. The objection to such Ultimates is that they bring an investigation to a dead end too suddenly.” I. A. Richards, Principles of Literary Criticism, p. 40.
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Notes
“An Almost Absolute Value in History,” John Noonan, Jr., ed., The Morality of Abortion, p. 51, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. For a thorough discussion of this and other views concerning the beginnings of human life, see Daniel Callahan, Abortion: Law, Choice and Morality, New York: Macmillan, 1970.
Roe v. Wade, The United States Law Week 41, pp. 4227, 4229.
Roe v. Wade, The United States Law Week 41, p. 4227. For a discussion of this and other positions taken in the 1973 Supreme Court abortion decisions see L. Tribe, Foreword, Harvard Law Review 87, 1–54, Nov. 1973.
Augustine, The City of God against the Pagans, Book I, ch. XX, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957.
Christopher D. Stone, “Should Trees Have Standing? Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects,” Southern California Law Review 45, 450–501, provides an interesting analysis of the extension of rights to those not previously considered persons, such as children, and a discussion of possible future extensions to natural objects.
Joseph Fletcher, “Indicators of Humanhood: A Tentative Profile of Man,” The Hastings Center Report 2, no. 5, 1–4.
Edward Shils, “The Sanctity of Life,” in D.H. Labby, ed., p. 12, Life or Death: Ethics and Options, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1968. David Hume, Essay on Immortality.
William Langer, “Checks on Population Growth: 1750–1850,” Scientific American 226, no. 2, 1972.
See S. Bok, “The Leading Edge of the Wedge,” The Hastings Center Report 1, no. 3, pp. 9–11, 1971.
See “Ethical Problems of Abortion” (footnote 1).
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© 1988 The Humana Press Inc.
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Bok, S. (1988). Who Shall Count as a Human Being?. In: Goodman, M.F. (eds) What Is a Person?. Contemporary Issues in Biomedicine, Ethics, and Society. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-3950-5_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-3950-5_11
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