The sentience register

The only tenable argument for abortion is that a foetus is not a human being. Thus, it depends on a separation of the idea of 'personhood' from the process, begun at conception and ended at death, of an incarnate human being. In an interesting new twist on ancient Gnostic heresies, we have a new and even more numinous concept posited as being in contrast to the Christian belief that a human being is a union of body and soul: rather than a person being a body, or a soul, a person is defined by 'quality of life'. The curious thing is that this is, as an idea, even harder to pin down than those of 'soul' or 'body', particularly since there's no agreement nowadays on what constitutes the good life in the first place.

Anyway, this is obviously the direction the argument is heading, both with respect to abortion and euthanasia. So, where is it likely to take us? If once we accept that 'personhood' is not something fundamental to a human being but rather a set of attributes acquired, or lost, by a collection of cells, then it seems to me that a logical consequence is the setting up of something we could call a 'sentience register'. This would first come into being to assess those whom society had deemed meet to kill off, and we see the first steps to this in abortion legislation, and more recently the push to legalising euthanasia, and now the so-called Groningen protocol in Holland, which defines which new-born babies can be killed.

After that, it would only be a matter of time before it became obvious that, while all humans are equal, some humans are more equal than others. For once humanity is predicated on a set of attributes, it will inevitably be the case that some people will have more, and others less. Thus the final result will be the creation of a society where worth is probably measured by some mix of genetic and developmental factors. Perhaps parents who produce children very much below or above them in their level of humanity will have those children removed and placed with more suitable carers. After all, it's in the child's own interests that it be raised by parents who can relate to it. One can ultimately envisage a society more rigidly stratified than any other in human history, one's level in it determined by psychological and genetic testing, and the eventual and inevitable slip down the sentience register accompanied by the knowledge that to fall too far brings with it a no doubt painless euthanasia. After all, you wouldn't be you anymore, you'd have ceased to be a human being.

This seems to me a likely development of current ideas. So watch out for the sentience register, coming soon to a health bureaucrat near you.

Comments

[Sharon]

'X Marks the Spot' an article from This Rock magazine addresses the issue of personhood. See link below

http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2004/0405fea2.asp

'Healing the Culture' by Fr Robert Spitzer SJ which is both a book and a series on EWTN deals with the human being/ person question.