Morgan Carter

03/08/2020

Personhood, by definition, is the condition of being a person. The concept around personhood is a very controversial topic that is tied in with legal, scientific, and religious ideas of what a person is. This has continued to be an international debate for decades. It has been brought up during slavery, civil rights, women’s right, and so on. However, now in the past couple of years, the debate has been about abortion, fetal rights, and reproductive rights. According to the law, only a natural person or legal personality has privileges, fairness, and liabilities. So what is a person, and should zygotes be giving legal personhood?

In 2017, William Neaves wrote an article about the religious outlook on the debate. He researched how religious beliefs about personhood influence how they view embryos. This article, The status of the human embryo in various religions, explores the ideas of different faiths see human embryos.

Neaves begins with the Roman Catholic Church, whose ideas have changed dramatically over time. Today they believe that “inception of human personhood coincides with fertilization of an egg by a sperm (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2017).” However, in the past, the Church recognized personhood after 40 days and even allowed abortions.

Thomas Aquinas, a 13th-century theologian, believed that before an embryo, there was a “vegetative soul” and then a “sensitive soul.” Aquinas believed that “God gave rational souls

only to human beings and that this occurred around day 40 of development…” This idea continued well into the early 14th century. Following this, Robert Hooke and Anthony van Leeuwenhoek after observations of sperm cells with microscopes. They conclude that “tiny humans” we’re inside of the sperm head.

With all that being said today, the Roman Catholic Church beliefs that all life begins at conception and deserves protection.

Buddhist suppose an embryo is a person once it is embedded in the uterus, and research can be in vitro. The spokesperson for the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism stated, “But how do we understand at what point consciousness enters the embryo? This is problematic. A fetus, which is becoming a human, is already a sentient being. But a fertilized egg may actually bifurcate into 8, 16, 32, 64 cells and become an embryo, and yet be naturally aborted and never become a human being. This is why I feel that for the formation of life, for something to become a human, something more is needed than fertilized eggs. “

While it is clear that more research must be and has been done, there still isn’t quite a consensus. Scott Gilbert, Howard A. Schneiderman Professor of biology, said in an interview, “I really can’t tell you when personhood begins, but I can say with absolute certainty that there’s no consensus among scientists.”

Gilbert explains that some scientist believes that someone is given personhood after fertilization when the sperm and egg combine. Some scientists think that it happens on day 14 ( the embryo

can no longer become twins or triplets), and some will say that it is around the 4th month when the personhood should be received.

He highlights the danger of the personhood movement is that “the equation works both ways.” He continues to state that he thinks the real question is, “what or who do you rescue? The zygotes, the blastocysts, are still what.”

In another 2017, the authors examine the causes and consequences of an embryo being considered a person. The authors make it clear that the law only protects things and persons. The capability of a fetus being a person is not definite because it doesn’t clarify if they should be treated as people of things. In some European countries and even some states in the U.S., they treat embryos as things when the “cryogenic embryos are donated to other couples.” They are given the same rules and regulations for adoption as any child being adopted, and they also have equal rights as an abandoned child in case of embryo abandonment.

Thus, the abandoned embryos will be under the care of the state, which should find them an adoptive family. This solution differs from the one applied in the countries, which do not recognize the status of the person of the human embryo.

“The embryo cannot have legal status, because it is not regulated the problem of its nature.” In another 2017, the authors examine the causes and consequences of an embryo being considered a person. Ann Warren states to qualify as a person, and you must have conscientiousness and capacity for pain, reasoning, self-motivated activity, the ability to communicate, and self-awareness, meaning an embryo can’t be a person.

The next step is to figure out whose job it is to give personhood. The legislator can’t provide the embryo personhood because they need to stay “neutral.” To figure out the real answer, the scientist would have to be allowed to research and examine embryo; however, if such research is conducted, it will go against the ethical and legal standards of the nation at hand. Judges can’t either, although they do give it personhood or not when they make verdicts that apply or do not apply to the embryo at hand. Lastly, the parent seems to be the definitive factor in deciding if a fetus is protected under the law or not. “Even if the legislations do not apply the right to life of an embryo, this is not defined and always treated as it is a thing…”

It is clear that the idea of legal status for an embryo is still very controversial, and there seems to be no solution. “. No matter what solution we use, the consequences were huge.” An Alabama abortion clinic is being sued because his girlfriend got an abortion after being pregnant for six weeks without his knowledge. The court recognized the fetus as a plaintiff, and the father was representative on behalf of the fetus.