"There is no clear distinct event to divide an unaware newborn and a more mature baby. That is why the unequivacal event of birth makes good legal sense."
If "self-awareness" is your standard for "humanness", and if one only achieves self-awareness some time well after birth, then your picking any point prior to that does not logically follow from your standard. Arbitrarily choosing age one, age one month, birth, first trimester, or conception all follow equally as logically from your standard - that is, not at all.
"Self-awareness is the one and only distinction that makes us human"
So, a severely mentally disabled, but otherwise apparently human, being who never develops the mental capacity for some vague notion of self-awareness (you never did say how you define that) is not, by your standard, human? Again, you leave the door open to killing them out of "mercy" or merely for the convenience for others. That's the same door your standard opens to infanticide, BTW, which point you didn't answer either.
PS: "Homo" does not mean "wise". It means "man". "Sapiens" means "wise." |
