I haven’t given a definition. I am drawing a distinction between what a scientist calls a “human being”, and the full meaning of that word.
I think what you mean is that drawing this distinction is difficult because we cannot directly measure personhood. That is problematic if you think fetuses are people despite this distinction. It’s probably less problematic if you are a woman who wants medical control over her body.
There is some kind of distinction. When hypothetically asked whether we would save 100 fertilized eggs from a fire, or one 10 year old, I’m pretty sure we’d all save the 10 year old. That doesn’t mean the fertilized eggs, or fetuses, are not also people. But there is some kind of clear distinction with moral implications.
Perhaps i am misremembering a good bit upthread , or maybe somewhere else, you made a claim that being human is about potential to do human things. Does that sound familiar?
Oh, you are probably right. I had forgotten I posted anything else besides the one today. You have a good memory.
True, I would say that whether we think something is a person should be motivated from its behavior, or at least its potential behavior.
I do not like simply saying a fertilized egg is a person because it has human chromosomes. I think that is scientifically reductionist, since it equates humanity with genes, and philosophically arbitrary.
People have defined personhood based on the potential to act as a person since antiquity, as far as I am aware. Man is a rational animal. It is either our ability for free will, or our intellect, or both, that makes us in God’s image, and gives us that special moral worth.
No, I don’t mean you have to be in a conscious act.
Natural processes may interfere with the actualization of our potential humanity. General anesthesia does not remove our personhood simply because it shuts down our brain.
More generally though: I claim that personhood is something we experience, in ourselves in and others. It is not something we should simply define, or can completely define.
HIPAA doesn’t allow for private civil suits for violations. This is also an issue with the TX doctor who was criminally charged for HIPAA violations in regards to releasing information about trans patients and has now had the charges dropped by the new administration. The families of the kids whose data he released do not have a potential HIPAA related civil suit.
Yeah, and that would presumably cover state/federal issues as well… unless there is a federal law that trumps local law. Like if Congress were to pass a law that abortion must be permitted everywhere then that would supersede a state or local law banning abortion and then it WOULD be a HIPAA violation.
But such a federal law does not currently exist and certainly isn’t getting passed in the next four years. Even if the Dems win solid majorities in 2026, they ain’t winning a filibuster-proof Senate let alone veto-overriding supermajorities in both chambers.
Given SCOTUS’s ruling, I don’t see any federal law allowing abortion being allowed. Didn’t the Dobbs ruling explicitly say that abortion is to be decided by each state?
The only thing I can see the Federal government ruling on is whether states can prosecute someone for traveling to a different state in order to have an abortion.