“As far as the whole personhood issue goes, to be logically consistent, pro-choice advocates must hold the view that children in the womb are human non-persons that only later become persons somehow—maybe when they grow enough big body parts, or their heads exit the womb, or maybe when they develop a sense of self-concept—around the age of two.
“But how can your size, or having the right body parts, or your spatial location determine your moral value as a person? How big do you have to be to be a person? Why not one millimeter smaller? What are the specific body parts or organs that make you a person? Am I less of a person if I lose some brain cells in an accident? Did I suddenly become a person when the doctor cut the uterine wall during my mother’s C-section or when he lifted me out of the uterus? Was I not a person moments before?
“This type of reasoning makes personhood sound something like weight—something you gain and lose through time. But personhood is not a property I have, it is the substance—the essence—of who I am. I am not a human that happens to be a person, I am a human-person—the term is implicitly redundant.”
