Dehumanisation of Other Human Persons
The stage of full personhood is defined differently by various faiths,
and one cannot impose one view on all, says SANTOSH HELEKAR
The political controversy surrounding the issue of medical abortions
and human personhood appears to have raised its ugly head in Herald (26
Dec & 9 Jan), complete with well-worn rhetoric used to dehumanise other
persons, including medical professionals and scientists who do not agree
with the proponent’s sectarian point of view. I noticed that, in the
process, the current proponent of this campaign in the avatar of
Averthanus L D’Souza, has misrepresented scientific facts and views that
I had presented recently. Let me address these misstatements as a
framework to discuss the broader issue of the secular philosophical and
scientific underpinnings of personhood.
Contrary to the author’s distortions, here are the accurate statements
that I made:
1. My objection to his recent writings on medical abortions was
specifically in response to the following quote of his: “The vast
majority of medical opinion holds that a human embryo or foetus is a
distinct human person. This should be obvious to anyone with common sense.”
I had pointed out that this claim was entirely false. ‘Human person’ is
a term derived from religious philosophy, not a term invented by medical
science. The vast majority of medical opinion has not coalesced around
its use. The vast majority of medical professionals want to use human
embryonic stem cells for saving lives through medical research into
potential cures for diabetes mellitus, Parkinson’s disease, heart
disease, kidney disease, etc. The vast majority of medical professionals
want to keep medical abortions legal for saving the lives of mothers in
difficult situations.
The views expressed by the author are the present-day beliefs of his
religion. In a secular democracy such as India he cannot seek to impose
his personal beliefs on people of other religions and creeds through
government action. Indeed, there are many religions and religious
organizations that do not subscribe to his current doctrine that an
embryo or a foetus has the moral status of a full human person, or for
that matter, a full human life, let alone to his wielding of the
political weapon that medical abortion is murder. The religious
establishments that do not agree with this point of view include
Judaism, Episcopal Church, Unitarian Universalist Association of
Congregations, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism, among many others.
These institutions either explicitly hold other positions, or allow a
diversity of beliefs regarding this issue. Judaism, for instance, gives
an individual the status of a full human life only at birth. Jews are
permitted to have medical abortions in cases where there is a
substantial threat to the physical or psychological health of the
mother. To compare these victims of the Nazis to Nazis themselves, as
the author’s latest column implicitly does when he invokes these iconic
villains of the past to smear everybody who does not hold his religious
beliefs, is using the method of verbal brutality to advance one’s own
pious agenda. Along with the repeated allusion to murder in connection
with a legal medical procedure, it supports the suspicion that his case
is entirely an appeal to raw emotions rather than to reason, informed by
universally acknowledged principles of secular law and morality.
However, leaving the rhetoric aside and getting back to substance, what
is remarkable is that historically the definition of a human person or
human life has undergone substantial evolution among successive
Christian theologians themselves. For instance, St Augustine of Hippo in
the 4th century AD embraced the view of Aristotle that a male foetus
becomes a human person at 40 days and a female foetus at 80 days, the
respective stages at which, he believed, that their body received a
soul. St Thomas Aquinas, perhaps the most influential Christian
theologian, extended this view to propose that a foetus does not become
a human being unless its body is “ensouled” by a “rational soul”, for
which it needs to first develop sense organs and a brain, a viewpoint
that has since been referred to as delayed hominization.
2. I had stated that a foetus at some stage in gestation (perhaps around
22 weeks) is likely to satisfy the neuroscientific definition of a
person or personhood, which is a state of being conscious of oneself and
one’s environment, and of being capable of thought and willed action.
The electrical activity of the cerebral cortex necessary for these
processes does not begin until this stage.
3. I had clearly indicated that both Christopher Reeve, who had complete
paralysis of his body below the neck, and Stephen Hawking, who suffers
from near total motor impairment because of a neurological disorder,
possessed full personhood, according to the above definition.
4. To clear up the confusion between human beings and persons I had
asserted the well-known biological fact that a human being is an animal
belonging to the genus Homo, as in our immediate evolutionary ancestors
and cousins, namely Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis,
Homo ergaster, Homo heidelbergensis, etc.
5. I had pointed out that according to the scientific definition of
personhood the great apes such as chimpazees, and even lower primates
such as baboons, all of whom are our evolutionary cousins, most likely
possessed a variable degree of personhood because primatologists have
shown them to be self-conscious, thinking and wilfully acting beings. I
had also mentioned that new evidence suggests that being in possession
of personhood, i.e., the state of being self-conscious, is a dynamic
state, created and recreated every waking moment.
6. I had affirmed that science had nothing to do with defining murder,
and that in secular law the definition of murder is not necessarily tied
to the definition of personhood, as is clear from the fact that killing
of soldiers and innocent bystanders in war are not considered murders. I
understand that secular law defines murder as a premeditated unlawful
killing of a human being, not necessarily a human person. Accordingly,
withdrawing life support from an irreversibly comatose individual (who
does not possess any semblance of a personhood) without legal
authorisation is regarded as murder.
Nonetheless, it is important to recognize that advances in brain science
are already contributing to an increasingly precise scientific
definition of personhood, and to a clearer understanding of its
biological basis. For example, a large body of evidence now suggests
that the sense of self is not unified and irreducible, as was once
thought. It can be experimentally fragmented, manipulated, dissociated
and projected outside one’s body. Staggering insights such as these and
the technology that is beginning to emerge from them would surely impact
future legislation and judicial decisions.
However, in matters of social norms, and ethics and morality, faith and
tradition would continue to play a central role.
So the question really is: whose faith and whose tradition? For,
evidently, these beliefs are not necessarily anchored in the physical
realm outside the human person’s body. They are arbitrary thoughts that
range over space, and change over time. The intensity with which they
are thrust upon others is limited only by the zeal of self-righteous
human persons who are willing to dehumanise their fellow persons for
holding other kinds of beliefs.
The answer to me then is to hold strong to our commitment to pluralism
and secularism on matters of faith, and to forge a pragmatic compromise
between the extremes, while not letting spurious political and emotional
arguments squelch scientific facts and real-life problems in society.
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