Indefinability, Science, and Metaphysics: The Case of the Fetus’ Ontological Personality

Authors

  • Juan Pablo Aranda Vargas Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2691-2588
  • Jorge Medina Delgadillo Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla
  • Víctor Manuel Topete Camarena Hospital Ángeles de Puebla

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14422/ee.v95.i374.y2020.003

Keywords:

person, fetus, definition, mystery, problem, abortion

Abstract

Faced with the question about whether the fetus should be deemed a human person, this work discusses three ways of approaching the idea of the «person» —grammatical, geometrical, and metaphysical— arguing that the fetus’ ontological personality is an edge case that forces us to use asymptotic definitions, formulated in gerund, and leaning on metaphysical claims. Scientific evidence regarding the fetus’ gestation shows (a) that this process is uninterrupted; (b) the coexistence between two independents, but nonetheless intimately related organisms; and (c) that there is evidence suggesting the fetus’ capacity to feel pain. Finally, we retrieve a theological conception of the person, affirming that treating the fetus as if she is a person goes beyond a prudential calculus of damage, and rather implies taking a stand before the «mystery», understood as a question that overflows the realm of the scientific, locating itself at the very core of human existence.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biographies

Juan Pablo Aranda Vargas, Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla

Doctor y maestro en ciencia política por la Universidad de Toronto. Licenciado en ciencia política por el Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM). Profesor Investigador en la Facultad de Ciencias Sociales de la Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla (UPAEP).

Jorge Medina Delgadillo, Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla

Doctor en filosofía, maestro en pedagogía y licenciado en filosofía por la Universidad Panamericana. Profesor Investigador en la Facultad de Filosofía de la Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla.

Víctor Manuel Topete Camarena, Hospital Ángeles de Puebla

Médico graduado de la Universidad Panamericana. Ginecobstetra por el Instituto Nacional de Perinatología. Creighton Model y NaProTECNOLOGÍA por Universidad de Creighton e Instituto Pablo VI. (CFCMC).

References

Abbey, Ruth. Charles Taylor. Teddington: Acumen, 2000.

Adorno, Theodor, y Max Horkheimer. Dialéctica de la Ilustración. 8.ª ed. Madrid: Trotta, 2006.

Agamben, Giorgio. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9780804764025

Agamben, Giorgio. Remnant of Auschwitz. The Witness and the Archive. New York: Zone Books, 1999.

Agamben, Giorgio. State of Exception. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2005.

Agamben, Giorgio. The Time that Remains. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005.

Agustín de Hipona. The City of God Against the Pagans. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Appiah, Kwame A. As If. Idealization and Ideas. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2017.

Aquino, Tomás de. Summa Contra Gentiles. Disponible en http://santotomasdeaquino.verboencarnado.net/capitulo-lxxxix-solucionde-las-objeciones-anteriores/

Aquino, Tomás de. Summa Theologiae. Disponible en http://www.newadvent.org/summa/

Arendt, Hanna. La Condición Humana. Barcelona: Paidós, 2016.

Beauvoir, Simone de. El Segundo Sexo. México: Penguin Random House, 2012.

Bellieni, Carlo V. “New Insights into Fetal Pain”. Seminars in Fetal and Neofetal Medicine 24 (2019): 1-5. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.siny.2019.04.001

Bergner, Raymond M. “What is a Person? What is the Self? Formulations for a Science of Psychology”. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology 37, n.º 2 (2017): 77-90. DOI: https://doi.apa.org/doi/10.1037/teo0000057

Blakely, Jason. Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, and the Demise of Naturalism. Reunifying Political Theory and Social Science. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2016.

Camosy, Charles C. “Common Ground on Surgical Abortion? — Engaging Peter Singer on the Moral Status of Potential Persons”. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 33 (2009): 577-593.

Collin, P. H. Dictionary of Medicine. New York: Routledge, 2014.

Concilio Vaticano II. Gaudium et Spes. Ciudad del Vaticano: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1965.

Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe. Instrucción Donum Vitae. Sobre el Respeto de la Vida Humana Naciente y la Dignidad de la Procreación. Ciudad del Vaticano: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1987.

Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe (CDF). Declaración sobre el Aborto. Ciudad del Vaticano: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1974.

Craddock, Joshua J. “Protecting Prenatal Persons: Does the Fourteenth Amendment Prohibit Abortion”. Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 40-2 (2017): 539-572.

Dreyfus, Hubert, y Charles Taylor. Retrieving Realism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015.

Francisco. Evangelii Gaudium. Ciudad del Vaticano: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2013.

Gest, Howard. “The discovery of microorganisms by Robert Hooke and Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, fellows of the royal Society”. Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 58, n.º 2 (2004): 187-201. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2004.0055

Giubilini, Alberto, y Francesca Minerva. “After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?”. Journal of Medical Ethics 39, n.º 5 (2013): 261-263. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2011-100411

Gregory, Brad S. The Unintended Reformation. How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012.

Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2010.

Iglesia Católica. Catecismo de la Iglesia Católica. Ciudad del Vaticano: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997.

Jones, David A. “Aquinas as an Advocate of Abortion? The Appeal to ‘Delayed Animation’ in Contemporary Christian Ethical Debates on the Human Embryo”. Studies in Christian Ethics 26, n.º 1 (2013): 97-124. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0953946812466495

Juan Pablo II. Fides et Ratio. Ciudad del Vaticano: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1998.

Juan Pablo II. Evangelium Vitae. Ciudad del Vaticano: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1995.

Kértesz, Imre. Sin Destino. Barcelona: Acantilado, 2006.

Last, John M., ed. Dictionary of Public Health. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Levi, Primo. If this is a Man. New York: Orion Press, 1959.

Marcel, Gabriel. Being and Having. Glasgow: Dacre Press, 1949.

Marquis, Don. “Abortion and the Beginning and End of Human Life”. Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 34-1 (2006): 16-25.

Mühling, Markus, y David Gilland. “Which Relationality? Whose Personhood? The Christian Understanding of the Person, ‘After-Birth Abortion’ and Embryonic Stem Cell Research”. Studies in Christian Ethics 26, n.º 4 (2013): 473-486. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0953946813492920

Pascal, Blaise. Pensées and Other Writings. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Pawlowski, Artur. “‘Miracle baby’: Born at 21 weeks, she may be the most premature surviving infant”. Today. Noviembre 9, 2017. Disponible en https://www.today.com/health/born-21-weeksshe-may-be-most-premature-surviving-baby-t118610

Ratzinger, Joseph. The Yes of Jesus Christ. Spiritual Exercises in Faith, Hope, and Love. New York: Crossroad, 2018.

Ratzinger, Joseph. “Concerning the notion of the Person in Theology”. Joseph Ratzinger in Communio, vol. 2, Anthropology and Culture, editado por David L. Schindler y Nicholas J. Healy, 103-118. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2013.

Ratzinger, Joseph. “Man between reproduction and creation: Theological questions on the origin of human life”. Joseph Ratzinger in Communio, vol. 2, Anthropology and Culture, editado por David L. Schindler y Nicholas J. Healy, 70-83. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2013.

Ratzinger, Joseph. “Technological security as a problem of social ethics”. Joseph Ratzinger in Communio, vol. 2, Anthropology and Culture, editado por David L. Schindler y Nicholas J. Healy, 42-51. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2013.

Ratzinger, Joseph. “Truth and Freedom”. Joseph Ratzinger in Communio, vol. 2, Anthropology and Culture, editado por David L. Schindler y Nicholas J. Healy, 147-167. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2013.

Ratzinger, Joseph. “Europe in the crisis of cultures”. Joseph Ratzinger in Communio, vol. 2, Anthropology and Culture, editado por David L. Schindler y Nicholas J. Healy, 188-199. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2013.

Ratzinger, Joseph. “Beyond Death”. Joseph Ratzinger in Communio, Vol. 2. Anthropology and Culture, editado por David L. Schindler y Nicholas J. Healy, 9-13. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2013.

Ratzinger, Joseph. Introduction to Christianity. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004.

Sartre, Jean Paul. Existentialism is a Humanism. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.

Taylor, Charles. The Language Animal. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2016.

Taylor, Charles. The Ethics of Authenticity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003.

Taylor, Charles. “The Politics of Recognition”. En Multiculturalism, editado por Amy Gutmann, 25-74. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994.

Taylor, Charles. “The Concept of a Person”. En Philosophical Arguments I, 97-114. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Religion in the University. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019.

Published

2020-09-10

How to Cite

Aranda Vargas, Juan Pablo, Jorge Medina Delgadillo, and Víctor Manuel Topete Camarena. “Indefinability, Science, and Metaphysics: The Case of the Fetus’ Ontological Personality”. Estudios Eclesiásticos. Revista de investigación e información teológica y canónica 95, no. 374 (September 10, 2020): 571–601. Accessed December 23, 2024. https://revistas.comillas.edu/index.php/estudioseclesiasticos/article/view/12108.