{"title":"Personhood Begins at Birth: The Rational Foundation for Abortion Policy in a Secular State.","authors":"L Lewis Wall, Douglas Brown","doi":"10.1007/s11673-024-10352-0","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The struggle over legal abortion access in the United States is a religious controversy, not a scientific debate. Religious activists who believe that meaningful individual life (i.e., \"personhood\") begins at a specific \"moment-of-conception\" are attempting to pass laws that force this view upon all pregnant persons, irrespective of their medical circumstances, individual preferences, or personal religious beliefs. This paper argues that such actions promote a constitutionally prohibited \"establishment of religion.\" Abortion policy in a secular state must be based upon scientifically accurate biology, not unprovable theological presuppositions. The scientific facts regarding human pregnancy do not support the position that personhood begins with fertilization-at which point a pregnancy does not yet even exist. Abortion policy should regard the embryo/fetus as part of the pregnant individual's body until delivery. We argue that individual \"personhood\" only begins when the latent potentialities of the fetal nervous system are actualized in the newborn after delivery. The paper argues that instantiating non-scientific beliefs concerning embryonic/fetal \"personhood\" into the law as the basis for abortion policy establishes a state-sponsored religion. The protection of religious liberty requires that abortion be decriminalized. Abortion should be treated like any other medical procedure and regulated similarly. To protect both religious freedom and sound medical practice, individual legal personhood should be recognized as beginning only at birth.</p>","PeriodicalId":50252,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Bioethical Inquiry","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Bioethical Inquiry","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-024-10352-0","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ETHICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The struggle over legal abortion access in the United States is a religious controversy, not a scientific debate. Religious activists who believe that meaningful individual life (i.e., "personhood") begins at a specific "moment-of-conception" are attempting to pass laws that force this view upon all pregnant persons, irrespective of their medical circumstances, individual preferences, or personal religious beliefs. This paper argues that such actions promote a constitutionally prohibited "establishment of religion." Abortion policy in a secular state must be based upon scientifically accurate biology, not unprovable theological presuppositions. The scientific facts regarding human pregnancy do not support the position that personhood begins with fertilization-at which point a pregnancy does not yet even exist. Abortion policy should regard the embryo/fetus as part of the pregnant individual's body until delivery. We argue that individual "personhood" only begins when the latent potentialities of the fetal nervous system are actualized in the newborn after delivery. The paper argues that instantiating non-scientific beliefs concerning embryonic/fetal "personhood" into the law as the basis for abortion policy establishes a state-sponsored religion. The protection of religious liberty requires that abortion be decriminalized. Abortion should be treated like any other medical procedure and regulated similarly. To protect both religious freedom and sound medical practice, individual legal personhood should be recognized as beginning only at birth.
期刊介绍:
The JBI welcomes both reports of empirical research and articles that increase theoretical understanding of medicine and health care, the health professions and the biological sciences. The JBI is also open to critical reflections on medicine and conventional bioethics, the nature of health, illness and disability, the sources of ethics, the nature of ethical communities, and possible implications of new developments in science and technology for social and cultural life and human identity. We welcome contributions from perspectives that are less commonly published in existing journals in the field and reports of empirical research studies using both qualitative and quantitative methodologies.
The JBI accepts contributions from authors working in or across disciplines including – but not limited to – the following:
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bioethics-
economics-
social theory-
law-
public health and epidemiology-
anthropology-
psychology-
feminism-
gay and lesbian studies-
linguistics and discourse analysis-
cultural studies-
disability studies-
history-
literature and literary studies-
environmental sciences-
theology and religious studies