The Shortcomings Of Boonin's Dequired Personhood
Three kinds of acquired personhood accounts have been identified above as argument: Warren’s account, Tooley’s account Boonin's improved desire account. We will first highlight the shortcomings of the six examples about how foetuses’ personhood can be interpreted in terms of acquired personhood. Then, we explore the personhood argument and Boonin's improved desire account respectively.
The following morally significant factors were considered within the acquired personhood category: relational factors, birth, viability, foetal movement, external human factors and ensoulment. The objections to each one of these are highlighted below:
1. Relational factors for granting an entity with the intrinsic worth, as in the case of classical Greece, are …show more content…
The problem with making viability a consideration is that the point at which a foetus can survive outside the womb changes according to the advancement in medical technology. Now even less than a three month premature or a six-month foetus can survive which was not possible 30 years ago. Furthermore, advanced? medical facilities are not the same everywhere around the globe. A 23 week of gestation may be a viable cut-off line in one part of the world but not in another. There is strong evidence that within a few years it may be possible to grow a foetus entirely independent of a mother’s body. On the basis of such technological advancements, the viability line becomes even more …show more content…
The perceived foetal movement known as quickening was only historically relevant. Quickening was the only way for a mother to know with certainty that she is pregnant. It had a morally significance in so far as the movement signalled the existence of another being. Now we do not have any reason to believe as Aristotle had that life and sensation begins at quickening. Even the actual foetal movement as compared to the conceived foetal movement is not a promising criterion in the presence of much more sophisticated criteria, such as, brain wavs, initial brain activity and cortical brain activity.
5. The criteria of external human form could work in the past only after the abortion had taken place. It was one way of deciding whether the foetus has reached the stage when it should be morally impermissible to abort. For example, the criteria had special significance for the Shi’i Muslim community in the past to determine the exact compensation to be applied based on the evidence of where the foetus lies in its stages of development. There is no need in the technological society to rely on any post-abortion criterion for deciding the morality of
The following morally significant factors were considered within the acquired personhood category: relational factors, birth, viability, foetal movement, external human factors and ensoulment. The objections to each one of these are highlighted below:
1. Relational factors for granting an entity with the intrinsic worth, as in the case of classical Greece, are …show more content…
The problem with making viability a consideration is that the point at which a foetus can survive outside the womb changes according to the advancement in medical technology. Now even less than a three month premature or a six-month foetus can survive which was not possible 30 years ago. Furthermore, advanced? medical facilities are not the same everywhere around the globe. A 23 week of gestation may be a viable cut-off line in one part of the world but not in another. There is strong evidence that within a few years it may be possible to grow a foetus entirely independent of a mother’s body. On the basis of such technological advancements, the viability line becomes even more …show more content…
The perceived foetal movement known as quickening was only historically relevant. Quickening was the only way for a mother to know with certainty that she is pregnant. It had a morally significance in so far as the movement signalled the existence of another being. Now we do not have any reason to believe as Aristotle had that life and sensation begins at quickening. Even the actual foetal movement as compared to the conceived foetal movement is not a promising criterion in the presence of much more sophisticated criteria, such as, brain wavs, initial brain activity and cortical brain activity.
5. The criteria of external human form could work in the past only after the abortion had taken place. It was one way of deciding whether the foetus has reached the stage when it should be morally impermissible to abort. For example, the criteria had special significance for the Shi’i Muslim community in the past to determine the exact compensation to be applied based on the evidence of where the foetus lies in its stages of development. There is no need in the technological society to rely on any post-abortion criterion for deciding the morality of