Originally Posted by
IMPress Polly
Several state legislatures are taking it upon themselves to define "personhood" as something that begins at one's first heartbeat, i.e. which is defined by the presence of a natural heartbeat. Okay well what about children, or any other people, with artificial hearts? I guess they're...not people then...right?
You see, people, personhood is so much more than just having a heartbeat, human DNA, or "potential". (Any egg cell or sperm has the "potential" to become a person, but that obviously doesn't mean it deserves legal rights, and we can all recognize that much.) Everything of value to human beings -- from our ability to perceive the world around us to our ability to form relationships -- is made possible by birth. Without these sorts of capacities, our's is but a shell of a life in comparison; a life only in a technical sense, not in a recognizable one.