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SCENE X. Are Foetuses Potential Persons?

1 KATHERINE. Chris, don’t be foolish! Of course there is progress! Just take the case of a pregnant woman whose life is threatened by her foetus. Nowadays the physicians can save the pregnant woman’s life by a small operation that simply removes the foetus and lets the woman live. [37]

2 CHRISTIANUS. But in order to ‘save’ the pregnant woman in such a life-threatening situation, they are sometimes forced to kill the foetus. So the progress in terms of stopping death, in such a scenario, would then translate to the ability to kill someone, namely the foetus. It is by such killings that the physicians ‘save’ lives.

3 KATHERINE. But that is, of course, only if we agree that the foetus is a person, or a potential person; otherwise it wouldn’t be killing.

4 CHRISTIANUS. But why wouldn’t we agree that the foetus is, at the very least, a potential person? Are you saying that the foetus has non-human DNA? Or are you perhaps challenging the modern DNA researchers and their Chargaff-inspired theories? [38] [39]

5 KATHERINE. No, I am not interested in challenging any DNA research right now. I know too little. And I don’t think that I want to say that the foetus has non-human DNA, either. But I could, perhaps, say that that there is no guarantee that the foetus will develop in such a way that it will end up with an ordinary human consciousness. In other words, the foetus may not develop in such a way as to become a fully conscious and fully functional person.

6 CHRISTIANUS. But you could say that about a newborn as well.

7 KATHERINE. Sure, but the newborn is no longer in the womb.

8 CHRISTIANUS. I don’t see very much difference there. In any case, let’s play with your idea that the foetus may not become a fully conscious, fully functional person, and therefore may not even be regarded as a potential person.

9 KATHERINE. OK.

10 CHRISTIANUS. But that would not give us any automatic licence to not refer to its ‘removal’ as ‘killing’. I mean, we commonly use the verb ‘kill’ not just when we talk about human beings, but also when talk about animals. And animals are not normally thought of as persons. So if we in our little thought experiment were to classify a foetus as some type of animal with a ‘lower’ and ‘non-human’ consciousness, we could still speak of killing it, even though it, in such a scenario, neither would be regarded as a person nor a potential person. In fact, thousands or millions of animals such as flies, mosquitoes, cows, and pigs are killed every day in private homes, slaughterhouses and medical research facilities.

11 KATHERINE. So perhaps we may speak of killing the foetus. How is that?

12 CHRISTIANUS. That’s much better. But the important point in the present discussion is of course that, in the case of the pregnant woman, the physicians didn’t save the woman permanently from dying; instead, they just gave her a little more time to live her earthly life, and they did so by killing the foetus. The woman still has to die, sooner or later, in some other way. In other words, not only have they not permanently saved the woman from dying; they have also actively killed the foetus. So where is the accomplishment?

13 KATHERINE. Well, you have to admit that it is a somewhat strange example: I mean, how many women are put in serious biological danger by their foetuses?

14 CHRISTIANUS. Sure, such cases are relatively rare. But it’s your example. You chose it, not I. So why don’t we take a much more common example in which women are not put in any serious biological danger by their foetuses, but where women still, for other reasons, participate in the act of killing their foetuses?

15 KATHERINE. Are you referring to regular abortion?

16 CHRISTIANUS. Yes.

17 KATHERINE. But sometimes women are raped. Are you saying that women shouldn’t be allowed to abort in such cases?

18 CHRISTIANUS. No, that’s not at all what I am saying. I am trying, unlike you, to focus on the current issue, which is that there is no progress in terms of stopping death.

19 KATHERINE. But surely there is some progress? For example, many women nowadays experience much greater individual freedom because of the advances in abortive methods; and as a woman I really appreciate that.

20 CHRISTIANUS. I was talking about death, not freedom. In any case, there is no doubt about that some people are appreciative of the current state of affairs. But in order to see today’s state of affairs as progress one would have to agree that the pregnant woman’s freedom of choice is the main concern, and that the foetus’s future and freedom is of less concern, or even much less concern. [40]

21 KATHERINE. Sure. But so what?

22 CHRISTIANUS. So what? The thing is, one doesn’t have to believe that women have a right to decide whether or not they want to kill the foetus, just as one doesn’t have to believe that women have a right to decide whether or not they want to kill anyone or anything that has, or hasn’t, human DNA. For if one didn’t think that women had such a right in the first place, and if one didn’t think that it would be desirable to implement such a right in human society, then one wouldn’t necessarily conclude that today’s state of affairs would be any progress. One might instead conclude, for example, that the huge number of unborn babies being aborted out of existence every year using various medical technologies for various non-life-threatening reasons is an indication of an increasing disrespect for human life, and a degradation of human society.

23 KATHERINE. Are you implying that there is something morally wrong with the view that women have a right to abort?

24 CHRISTIANUS. It is a very complex issue, and I don’t want to get into it right now. Instead, I want to concentrate on my main point, namely that regardless of whatever else is going on in today’s Western world, there is no progress in terms of stopping death. There hasn’t been a single case in which the physicians have permanently saved anyone from dying.

25 KATHERINE. What about cryogenics? [41]

26 CHRISTIANUS. You mean cryonics, Katherine. That’s just the art of putting an already dead person in the freezer, isn’t it? [42]

27 KATHERINE. What do you mean?

28 CHRISTIANUS. I mean there is no treatment involved. They just quickly put the deceased person in cold storage and hope that future medical technology will be able to bring him back; and if technology does come to such a point, then the cryonics people presumably just heat the poor frozen fellow up a bit, after which they immediately hand him over to the physicians; and then the physicians provide the actual medical treatment, whatever it might be.

29 KATHERINE. But that doesn’t sound so bad, does it? I mean, it’s a chance, right? There are so many cases where emergency room physicians have successfully revived patients who have lost all their vital signs. So cryonics doesn’t seem to be totally off, does it?

30 CHRISTIANUS. Well, maybe not. But my main point is still that no physician has permanently saved anyone from dying. So even if cryonics and an improving medical technology may set the stage for a temporary revival of a previously cryossified corpse, it’s not a permanent comeback in any case. Whoever comes back still has to die, a little later. [43]

31 KATHERINE. OK, let’s forget about cryonics, for now. But at least we can say that, on average, human beings live longer today than they previously did, according to current statistics?

32 CHRISTIANUS. Yes, at least in some countries and regions.

33 KATHERINE. Not all?

34 CHRISTIANUS. Certainly not. Far from it. At least if we are to believe the numbers in WHO’s The World Health Report. [44]

35 KATHERINE. What are the numbers?

36 CHRISTIANUS. The numbers are . . . ta-ta-ta-taaa-taaa-taaa-tiiiii . . . 12 . . . 26 . . . 37 . . .

37 KATHERINE. C’mon, Chris! No lotto announcement, please!

38 CHRISTIANUS. All right. But sometimes it’s important to play around a bit, and not take things too seriously.

39 KATHERINE. Yes, sometimes. So what do you have?

40 CHRISTIANUS. Well, there are so many numbers, so many countries, so many years. And so little time. So I’ll just give you a quick sample. [45]

41 KATHERINE. OK.

42 CHRISTIANUS. Out of those twenty-eight countries whose names start with either ‘A’ or ‘B’, ten countries have lower life expectancy figures for the year 2004 than for the year 1999. [46] [47]

43 KATHERINE. Really?

44 CHRISTIANUS. Yes. In six countries the life expectancy drops for both males and females; in three other countries it drops for males only; and in one other country it drops for females only. [48] [49] [50]

45 KATHERINE. But surely all the countries in the Western world are not among those? They must have increasing life expectancy numbers?

46 CHRISTIANUS. Well, it depends what you mean by ‘the Western world’. If you, for example, count Bosnia and Herzegovina as being part of ‘the Western world’, then you may not necessarily be right.

47 KATHERINE. Really?

48 CHRISTIANUS. Yes. In Bosnia and Herzegovina the life expectancy is dropping for males.

49 KATHERINE. But isn’t there room for some statistical errors?

50 CHRISTIANUS. Sure, there is always room for that. And this is a quick sample of the WHO reports, as I said — and God knows where those data come from, anyway. So the numbers and trends may be rather uncertain, including those that show increasing life expectancy figures. [51]

51 KATHERINE. Point well taken. But at least America and Britain have increasing life expectancy figures, don’t they? [52]

52 CHRISTIANUS. Yes. But that may still not indicate any progress for you, in any case.

53 KATHERINE. Are you insane? Isn’t it progress when we have increasing life expectancy numbers? Isn’t it progress to have more years to live?

54 CHRISTIANUS. Well, the problem is just that those life expectancy numbers don’t say that you have more years to live; they are just part of some average population statistics. So just as no actual living person has 1.7 kids or 2.2 cars in their little suburban family, the average life expectancy figures may not pertain to any specific, individual person either. Therefore, it is no guarantee that you, as an individual person, will reach the ‘life expectancy’ age and be able to ‘take advantage’ of the latest longevity research. So it may not indicate any progress for you, personally. For instance, you may be hit by a truck tomorrow and die immediately, without getting any chance of becoming the proud owner of the latest pacemaker technology.

55 KATHERINE. I see your point.

56 CHRISTIANUS. And the main problem remains: all people on this planet are dying. With or without pacemakers, ordinary people in this time and age do not live more than approximately 100 years: and some only get 80 years of life, others only 60, 40, or 20, etc. Everyone is still dying.

57 KATHERINE. So you are saying that there is no difference?

58 CHRISTIANUS. There is no difference in terms of death: everyone still has to die. But there is, of course, some difference in terms of what happens just before one dies: the physicians sometimes can keep the patient alive a few hours, days, weeks, or months more. But they can’t do it consistently, for all patients; they can only do it for some. And even if they could do it consistently, for all patients, it wouldn’t be any real progress anyway.

59 KATHERINE. Why not?

60 CHRISTIANUS. Because real progress is to be able to live on. That is what we really want. Only if we can continue to live on will we have a chance of becoming really satisfied. So if we accept death as the end, then there can be no real satisfaction now, and no real satisfaction later. So we must not accept death.

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Notes (SCENE X)

[37] X:1, foetus: An alternative form of the word ‘foetus’ is ‘fetus’, and is commonly used in the United States of America.

[38] X:4, potential person: Mary Anne Warren has written an interesting article about abortion. She says: ‘Once a pregnant woman has committed herself to the continued nurturance of the fetus, she and those close to her are likely to think of it as an ‘unborn baby’, and to value it for its potential. The fetus’s potential lies not just in its DNA, but in that maternal (and paternal) commitment’ (1993, pp. 312–313).

MARY ANNE WARREN (1993), ‘Abortion’ in Peter Singer, ed., A Companion to Ethics. Oxford, England and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, pp. 303–313.

[39] X:4, Chargaff-inspired: According to Mader (1990, p. 222), Edwin Chargaff’s data showed two things about DNA. The first one was that DNA has ‘the variability required of the genetic material’ (1990, p. 222; Mader’s emphasis). The concentration of DNA’s four bases — adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C), and guanine (G) — varies in different species: for example, in Homo sapiens the concentration is 31.0% (A), 31.5% (T), 19.1% (G), and 18.4% (C), while it in, for example, Bacillus subtilis is 28.4% (A), 29.0% (T), 21.0% (G), 21.6% (C). The second thing was that DNA ‘has a constancy required of the genetic material’ (1990, p. 222; Mader’s emphasis). This ‘constancy’ feature, sometimes referred to as Chargaff’s rule, amounts to that the concentrations of the four nitrogenous bases occur in pairs: ‘adenine in equal concentrations to thymine, and cytosine in equal concentrations to guanine’ (Lapczynski 1999, p. 283). Thus, in Homo sapiens, the concentration of adenine and thymine are both approximately 31%, and the concentration of guanine and cytosine are both approximately 19%; similarly, in Bacillus subtilis, the concentration of adenine and thymine are both approximately 29%, and the concentration of guanine and cytosine are both approximately 21%.

KATE LAPCZYNSKI (1999), ‘Genetics, Historical Development of’ in Jeffrey A. Knight and Robert McClenaghan, eds., Encyclopedia of Genetics. 2 vols. Pasadena, CA and Hackensack, NJ: Salem Press, Inc.

SYLVIA S. MADER (1990), Biology. Third edition. Contributors: Cellular Energy and Botany: W. Dennis Clark; Genetics: Robert M. Kitchin; Ecology: Thomas C. Emmel; Critical Thinking Case Studies: Robert D. Allen. Dubuque, IA: Wm. C. Brown Publishers.

[40] X:20, progress: Christianus seems to view ‘progress’ as something that is measured in relation to a certain philosophy, or a certain set of ideas or beliefs. This may be compared to Paul Feyerabend’s discussion of ‘progress’, ‘advance’, and ‘improvement’ in Against Method: ‘Everyone can read the terms in his own way and in accordance with the tradition to which he belongs. Thus for an empiricist, “progress” will mean transition to a theory that provides direct empirical tests for most of its basic assumptions. Some people believe the quantum theory to be a theory of this kind. For others, “progress” may mean unification and harmony, perhaps even at the expense of empirical adequacy. This is how Einstein viewed the general theory of relativity’ (1988, pp. 18–19; emphasis in original).

PAUL FEYERABEND (1988), Against Method. Revised edition. London and New York: Verso.

[41] X:25, cryogenics: Abate defines the word ‘cryogenics’ as ‘the branch of physics dealing with very low temperatures’ (1998, p. 202).

FRANK ABATE, ed. (1998), The DK Illustrated Oxford Dictionary. New York: Dorling Kindersley and Oxford University Press.

[42] X:26, cryonics: Gallery defines the word ‘cryonics’ (cryonic suspension) as ‘the cold storage of clinically dead people at very low temperatures, typically in liquid nitrogen at –196 celsius, until some future date when it is hoped that medical science will have progressed to the point where the body can be revived and the cause of death reversed’ (2001, p. 131).

STEVEN GALLERY (2001), ‘Cryonics’ in Glennys Howarth and Oliver Leaman, eds., Encyclopedia of Death and Dying. London and New York: Routledge.

[43] X:30, cryossified: This adjective seems to be Christianus’s own combination of the word ‘cryo’ (Gr. kryos cold, frost) and the word ‘ossified’ (Lat. ossis of a bone). He might refer to a fixed, bone-like state of affairs (‘set in bone’) that is accomplished by a process of freezing that uses cold or super-cold temperatures. The usage note on ‘ossify’ provided by Harber and Payton (1995, p. 716) may also be interesting to consult in this connexion: ‘“the old man’s attitudes have ossified amid the social changes of today” (= become fixed or set)’.

KATHERINE HARBER and GEOFFREY PAYTON, eds. (1995), Heinemann English Dictionary. Fully revised and updated. Oxford: Heinemann Educational.

[44] X:34, The World Health Report: WHO publishes The World Health Report once a year, and it is available on the WHO website [http://www.who.int]. Christianus seems to have used the WHO 2000 and WHO 2006 reports [cf. X:42 and onward].

WHO (2000), The World Health Report 2000: Health systems: improving performance. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization.

WHO (2006), The World Health Report 2006: Working together for health. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization.

[45] X:40, quick sample: Christianus provides a ‘quick sample’ reading, seemingly indicating that he is not overwhelmingly concerned with any particular level of accuracy in the reading of the WHO figures, or with whether there are five or fifteen countries of the twenty-eight that have decreasing life expectances. And although Christianus does not reveal the exact nature of his ‘quick sample’ reading, we may note two things about how the data in the WHO reports may have been read. First, since the WHO uses one decimal in their 1999 data, but no decimals in their 2004 data, Christianus’s ‘quick sample’ reading may have rounded off the 1999 data to the nearest integer, thus reading, for example, ‘42.3’ as ‘42’, and ‘67.8’ as ‘68’. Second, although the WHO tables present different ‘uncertainty intervals’ for different countries and different years, Christianus’s ‘quick sample’ reading may not have taken these into account.

[46] X:42, ten countries: According to WHO 2000 (p. 156) and WHO 2006 (p. 169), these ten countries (out of those twenty-eight whose name starts either with ‘A’ or ‘B’) have, on a ‘quick sample’ reading [cf. X:40], life expectancy figures that are dropping from 1999 to 2004, for either males or females or both: Afghanistan, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Barbados, Belize, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brunei Darussalam, and Burundi.

[47] X:42, year 2004 . . . year 1999: The life expectancy numbers (‘Life Expectancy at Birth’) for the years 1999 and 2004 can be found in The World Health Report 2000 and The World Health Report 2006, respectively. Note that the WHO seems to compile their more recent reports in a slower tempo than they did before: up to and including The World Health Report 2003 the report included data pertaining to the previous year; but starting with The World Health Report 2004 they seem to delay the publication of the data one more year. This is why the 2006 report presents data from 2004, while the 2000 report presents data from 1999.

[48] X:44, six countries: According to WHO 2000 (p. 156) and WHO 2006 (p. 169), the following six countries have, on a ‘quick sample’ reading [cf. X:40], dropping life expectancy numbers (‘Life Expectancy at Birth’) from 1999 to 2004, for both males and females. Afghanistan: males go from 45.3 to 42 years; females from 47.2 to 42 years. Angola: males go from 46.3 to 38 years; females from 49.1 to 42 years. Antigua and Barbuda: males go from 71.4 to 70 years; females from 76.8 to 75 years. Armenia: males go from 72.3 to 65 years; females from 77.1 to 72 years. Azerbaijan: males go from 67.8 to 63 years; females from 75.3 to 68 years. Belize: males go from 69.6 to 65 years; females from 75.0 to 72 years.

[49] X:44, three countries: According to WHO 2000 (p. 156) and WHO 2006 (p. 169), the following three countries have, on a ‘quick sample’ reading [cf. X:40], dropping life expectancy numbers (‘Life Expectancy at Birth’) from 1999 to 2004, for males only. Barbados: males go from 72.7 to 71 years; women from 77.8 to 78 years. Bosnia and Herzegovina: males go from 71.2 to 70 years; females from 75.0 to 77 years. Burundi: males go from 43.2 to 42 years; females from 43.8 to 47 years.

[50] X:44, one other country: According to WHO 2000 (p. 156) and WHO 2006 (p. 169), one country has, on a ‘quick sample’ reading [cf. X:40], dropping life expectancy numbers (‘Life Expectancy at Birth’) from 1999 to 2004, for females only. Brunei Darussalam: males go from 74.5 to 76 years; females from 79.8 to 78 years.

[51] X:50, God knows: One may, for example, note the following WHO statement: ‘Figures computed by WHO to ensure comparability; they are not necessarily the official statistics of Member States, which may use alternative rigorous methods’ (2006, p. 168).

[52] X:51, America and Britain: According to WHO 2000 (p. 163) and WHO 2006 (p. 177), the United States of America has, on a ‘quick sample’ reading [cf. X:40], increasing life expectancy numbers (‘Life Expectancy at Birth’) from 1999 to 2004, for males only: males go from 73.8 to 75 years; women from 79.7 to 80 years. The United Kingdom has, on a ‘quick sample’ reading, increasing life expectancy numbers (‘Life Expectancy at Birth’) from 1999 to 2004, for both males and females: males go from 74.7 to 76 years; females from 79.7 to 81 years.

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HOW TO CITE: Bo C. Klintberg (2008), ‘Are Foetuses Potential Persons?’ in Katherine’s Questionable Quest for Love and Happiness. Online edition of Philosophical Plays, 1 Jan. 2008. Retrieved [today’s date] from http://philosophicalplays.googlepages.com/pgKQQv1sc10.htm.

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