I think St. Augustine was a theologian and a bishop, not a scientist. He did not have access to anything like the level of scientific data that began to develop in the mid 19th century, and which has been amassed today.
...slaves were human, but were not considered persons under the Constitution until the 13th and 14th Amendments.
...An illegal alien is a human, and of course, is a person. But is he a person to which the Bill of Rights applies?
...And let's face it, slaves had the same unalienable rights as everyone else, they were ignored though, by refusing to accept that a slave was a person as envisaged by the Constitution....
Let me say that I agree with you that slave had inalienable rights that were simply ignored and abrogated. The operative word, though, is citizen, not person. Slaves were not considered non-persons legally; they were considered as non-citizens. Well, for census purposes they were not considered entire persons, they only counted for 3/5ths of a person.
You bring up a great point about illegal aliens, which illustrates Harry Blackmun's hair-brained misunderstanding of even basic grammar. If his idiotic interpretation of the syntax and grammar of the 14th Amendment were applied to immigrants referred to in the same clause of the same sentence they wouldn't be persons either while they crossed the Atlantic ocean, and I suppose they wouldn't be persons until they were naturalized and so could also be killed as long as the homicides were committed by licensed physicians.
- "Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons."
The whole reason that people like Harry Blackmun want to invent an irrational dichotomy between human and person when it comes to certain other human beings is that the former want to get rid othe latter by killing them, and the only way they can try to justify it is by imagining a non-existent category of being; a sub-human. There isn't any more such thing as a potential person than there is a potential turnip. All persons are actual just as all turnips are actual.
That words have to be twisted beyond recognition to achieve certain desired ends should tell people something about the nature of what is being plotted. It's like the present attempts to redefine marriage.
Even using your 1828 dictionary, I demonstrated that certain requirements seemed to be necessary to be a person.
And all of which I demonstrated are met even by a human zygote. I showed this in two ways;
1. Potentials and capabilities are limited to the kind of thing to which they belong. A human zygote is already possessed of a rational nature otherwise he or she would and could never have the potential to exercise any such rational operation. Things can never become what they already are not in the first place.
"A thing can become only what it has the specific power to become, only what it already is, in a sense, potentially. And a thing can be understood only as that kind of thing that has that kind of a specific power; while the process can be understood only as the operation, the actualization, the functioning of the powers of its subject or bearer."
John Herman Randall (on Aristotle)
Uh, are you absolutely sure you want to insert this [fetus - n. humans after the end of the second month of gestation.] into your argument that a person is one from the moment of conception? Doesn't this definition legitimize abortions rather than proscribe them?
Only if one makes the same sort of grammatical mistake Blackmun did. That fetus is a word used to describe humans after the the end of the second month of gestation no more means that fetuses become human after the second month of gestation than that immigrants become persons upon becoming naturalized citizens.
Cordially,
He was both, but more than anything he studied the sciences and the Bible very critically. He believed that science trumped Biblical writings in that the writings in the Bible were considered by him to be metaphors when they conflicted with science, and should not be taken literally, something many here might think about. As a student of science, and a critical thinker, he was decades ahead of anyone else. His determination of the timing of ensoulment was based on studies of fetal development at the time.
As for the mid 19th Century, what exactly would the Pope have learned that would have caused him to reject both Aquinas and Augustine?
Let me say that I agree with you that slave had inalienable rights that were simply ignored and abrogated. The operative word, though, is citizen, not person. Slaves were not considered non-persons legally; they were considered as non-citizens.
The 5th Amendment does not refer to citizens, but rather to persons.
Well, for census purposes they were not considered entire persons, they only counted for 3/5ths of a person.
Exactly my point. But did a slave have any rights under the Constitution or even state constitutions? Even 3/5 of a right? That's why the definition of "person" simply has many meanings, and cannot be definitive for settling the abortion issues.
That words have to be twisted beyond recognition to achieve certain desired ends should tell people something about the nature of what is being plotted. It's like the present attempts to redefine marriage.
The marriage issue notwithstanding, I'm merely establishing, and with your help, that the word "person" has so many meanings as to be almost irrelevant to the abortion issue. That doesn't mean that either at some stage we cannot make a legal construct of "person" sufficient to guarantee certain rights, nor that the concept of natural rights per se can't be used. I think both of those are the central issues trumping privacy rights, but they will carry much more weight I believe when the issue of stages of development are considered.
The whole reason that people like Harry Blackmun want to invent an irrational dichotomy between human and person when it comes to certain other human beings is that the former want to get rid othe latter by killing them, and the only way they can try to justify it is by imagining a non-existent category of being; a sub-human.
Casting one side of this issue...or the other as evil, one wanting simply to kill as many fetuses as they can and the other wanting to deny a woman control of her body are nothing but smokescreens for both sides. I seriously doubt that anyone involved in this issue simply wants to kill, nor do I believe that most on the pro-life side want to control a woman's body. But until we get past those silly extreme views of the opposition, we get nowhere.
I note your whole argument centered on the capability issue. But while a potential for rational thought exists, it is not present at the early stages. Nor are any of the tools to translate that into all of the characteristics we recognize as a human being, a central nervous system, a brain, a heart, form, ability to feel pain or any other sensory perceptions. Later, yes. Your whole argument is based on the fact that it could develop into a human as we know it. This is where we part company. Once I purchased a new home with only a foundation. I was disappointed because that home was not what I had envisioned. Never again. A concrete slab is not a home.
2. I demonstrated from your own existence that it is ontologically necessary that all humans are persons.
But you failed to convince me that they are de facto persons in the eyes of the law and the Constitution. That is the issue, and not medical or etymological usages through the ages.
Well, we may meet again. Take care.