Part 2 has been published and can be read here.
Introduction
Kate Greasley released a book in 2017 called Arguments About Abortion. Coming in at 267 pages, it is dense, packed with her own arguments, summaries of other authors’ points, and her responses. Her belief is that abortion can only be morally justified if the unborn are not persons. It would be hard to do her whole book justice in one review.
Instead, I wanted to look at one section of her book where she heavily engages with Robert P. George and Christopher Tollefsen’s book, Embryo, which strives to show that the unborn are persons with a right to life. That section of Greasley’s book can be broken into two parts. First she critiques their argument for personhood essentialism. Second, she interacts with their critiques of dualism.
There is a lot of information to cover so I will respond to her in two articles. In both articles, I will ask two questions:
1. Does she represent George and Tollefsen fairly?
2. Do Greasley’s rebuttals work?
The first part of this essay will focus on summarizing her points. The second half will offer a critique.
Summary
What is George and Tollefsen’s argument?
According to Greasley, George and Tollefsen argue for a view known as personhood essentialism. She writes,
“Philosophers who rely on this claim draw a distinction between ‘accidental’ and ‘essential’ characteristics of individuals. An accidental characteristic is a trait which an individual could either possess or lack whilst still being the same thing…. Essential characteristics, on the other hand, are qualities without which an individual or object would not be the same basic thing that it is.” (1)
An example of an accidental characteristic for me might be the fact that I have curly hair and blue eyes. I could be bald, or have no eyes at all, and I would still be me, Chris. An essential characteristic of mine would be my membership in the human species. I could not have been a cat and remain the same basic thing.
According to Greasley, George and Tollefsen use the example of a dog named Rufus. It is an essential property of Rufus that he belongs to the species dog. Rufus has accidental properties like being able to run. He will not cease to be a dog if he becomes paralyzed. But he would not be able to exist as anything besides a dog. Being a dog is his essential property. (2)
How does this play into George’s and Tollefsen’s argument for essential personhood? They argue that being a person is an essential property of a human person. That means there could not be a time when a human being is not a person. He’d have to be a person through every stage of his life. Since being a zygote, embryo, and fetus are stages of his life, he would have to be a person during those times as well. If human organisms lost or gained that property, they would go out of existence. (3) She breaks down their argument the following way:
1. A being cannot change substantially (or essentially) and remain the same individual thing.
2. Mature human beings are numerically identical with the zygotes and embryos which begat them. I was once a fetus and that fetus was me.
3. Personhood is an essential property of all creatures which are persons, thus
4. C1: If I am a person, so was the zygote, embryo, and fetus which were identical with me, and
5. C2: I am a person, therefore so was the zygote, embryo, and fetus from whence I came. (4)
Greasley considers each premise in turn and offers various ways of challenging them.
A Substantive Argument
First, she suggests arguing that a change in an essential characteristic like personhood is possible. She uses Warren Quinn’s “process theory” of individuals to demonstrate how.
Quinn explains that “the coming to be of substantial individuals may be a genuine process in time in the course of which the prospective individual comes into existence gradually, entering the world by degrees.” (5) He likens the development of personhood to the two stages of building a house.
First, there is the preparatory process where the building materials are gathered together in preparation for the arrival of the house. In a similar way, the cells of the organism are gathered together for the arrival of what Quinn calls the biological animal. Second, there is the finishing process where the house and the organism are perfected by the changes and additions that take place in them. (6)
Greasley argues that as long as “whilst going through this construction process, the thing retains its numerical identity, then substantial change will be possible. The same individual which is only a person-in-process at one stage will be a person at another.” (7) Can a person retain its numerical identity through such substantial change? Quinn’s house analogy seems to suggest so. Just like a house under construction, is neither a house, nor a mere assemblage of materials, similarly a human under development is neither a person or a mere assemblage of cells. Over time, the object’s right to be called a house increases according to Quinn. In the same way a human’s right to be called a person increases. But the house and the human are still the same object throughout the change. (8)
In and Out Objection
Next Greasley proposes challenging the idea that personhood is an essential characteristic. Instead, she explains, it could be an accidental property that adults achieve later in life the way that they become doctors or lawyers. If this is true, she argues, then it would be coherent to say that the same human being can go through phases of being a person and a non-person throughout his or her existence, while remaining the same numerically identical thing.
She writes, “Again, the fact that quintessentially “person-like” traits such as self-awareness and consciousness do come and go in human beings might only bolster the claim that personhood is an accidental property.” (9) She also wonders if George and Tollefsen believe there are any other characteristics besides personhood that typical mature humans possess essentially. (10)
Celebrate the Differences
Finally, she considers denying the fact that mature human beings are numerically identical with the embryos and fetuses that came before them. This would make them different kinds of things from the earlier embryo, zygote, and fetus and allow the possibility that mature human beings have personhood while immature humans do not. (11)
Now that we’ve seen her summary of George and Tollefsen’s arguments, we can examine how accurately she represented them.
What George and Tollefsen Actually say
I use Kindle which means I can type in keywords when I am looking for a page. To figure out exactly which section of the book Greasley was referring to, I typed in the name of the aforementioned dog, Rufus. After reading through this section, it became clear to me that Greasley had utterly and completely missed George and Tollefsen’s point.
First, while she did a good job explaining accidental and essential characteristics, George and Tollefsen state quite clearly that they are not discussing what properties we essentially have, but rather what we are. (12)
Now, she could say “Okay, that’s an easy fix. They are arguing that what we are essentially is persons.” But that’s also not what this section is about. In fact, at one point they even say, “Now, we do not wish to deny that we are persons. Later in this chapter, we will briefly show how the fact that we are human beings is to be squared with the fact that we are persons.” (13) Two important points should be noted from this sentence.
1) They say they are going to discuss personhood later.
2) They tell us what they actually say we are: human beings.
Now she is right that they use the dog, Rufus, as an illustration for their argument. However, they don’t say that being a dog is an essential property of his. They say rather that a dog is what he is! This means that
“Rufus began to exist when this particular dog began to exist, and he will cease to exist when this particular dog ceases to exist. But he did not begin to exist when he began to run, or when he grew teeth, or when Smith purchased him; nor will he cease to exist if he ceases to possess the traits of running, having teeth, or living in Smith’s house…Rufus belongs to the substance kind dog and possesses accidents such as running, having teeth, and having hair.” (14)
How does this apply to humans? Well, as George and Tollefsen explain, we are essentially humans the way that Rufus is essentially a dog. That means that we began to exist when a particular human began to exist and we cease to exist when that particular human ceases to exist. But we did not begin to exist when that human being became conscious, has emotions, or memory retention. Nor will we will not cease to exist if the human organism goes into a coma, becomes emotionless, and loses all memory. We belong to the substance kind human essentially and possess accidental traits like consciousness, emotion and memory. (15)
Does the question of personhood essentialism come up at all in their book? Yes, but not in the way that Greasley thinks.
Duals over Dualism
Personhood essentialism is a type of dualism. Dualism is the very idea that George and Tollefsen are trying to refute by claiming that we are essentially human animals.
Personhood essentialism denies that we are human organisms and says that we are of the kind persons. This means we do not necessarily come into existence when our bodies do. Instead, the arrival of personhood usually coincides with the onset of certain psychological traits. (16)
One of the major issues with dualism is raised by philosopher Erik T. Olson, no pro-lifer himself. He explains how on this view, we were never fetuses. This raises the question of what happens to the fetus once the person comes into being. Does the fetus cease to exist while the person takes its place? Or does the fetus continue to exist while never becoming a person and just shares matter with the person that is numerically different from it? (17)
George and Tollefsen raise another question: if the fetus continues to exist, how can the fetus not share all the same properties of the person, and if it does share all the properties, how is it not also a person? On the other hand, if the fetus ceases to exist, does that mean that the person that is you or I is no longer a human? They argue, and I concur, that neither of these options seem metaphysically possible. Thus, it makes more sense to say that, myself, Greasley, them, and you who are reading this article are essentially human animals, and not essentially persons. Thus, we were once fetuses, and before that embryos. (18)
Now, let’s compare their argument with Greasley’s five point summary.
1) I think George and Tollefsen would agree that a being cannot change substantially from one kind of thing to another. But we need to clarify some terms. For Greasley, that means losing a certain property. For George and Tollefsen, that means becoming something other than a human organism which I think we can all agree is an absurd idea. But this is all an implication of their argument, not a premise of the argument itself.
2) Likewise, they would agree that we are numerically identical with the embryo, zygote and fetus. Once again however, this is an implication of the argument rather than a premise of it.
3) They would not say that personhood is an essential property. They would say that a person is what human organisms are.
4) C1 should therefore be written more like, “If human persons are essentially human organisms, then they began to exist as embryos and continued to exist through each stage of human development.”
5) C2 should read: “Human persons are essentially human organisms, therefore they began to exist as embryos and continued to exist through every stage of human development.”
Here’s the punchline of this whole essay. Essential personhood appears to be Greasley’s view! In her book, she explains her belief that humans only become persons once they are capable of sentience, rationality, emotionality, the ability to communicate, and agency. The personhood threshold is sometime after birth. (19)
That suggests she does not tie what we are to any part of our bodies, such as the brain, since all of that comes into existence before birth. Ergo, the person that we are must be of a different substance from the body all together. If Greasley was able to refute essential personhood, she’d be refuting herself. This makes it tempting to say that none of her rebuttals could actually affect George’s and Tollefsen’s argument. But, just for kicks, let’s try them out anyway.
Life as a House
Greasley’s use of Quinn’s house analogy is supposed to show us that it is possible to gain the property of personhood at a later stage in life while remaining the same thing. She could potentially tweak it to say that it is an example of one type of thing, nails and boards, turning into a different kind of thing, a house. Her argument would then be that it was possible for a human substance to turn into a person substance.
There are two problems with this however. First of all, a house is not a substance, it is a property thing. As Scott Klusendorf explains, property things are the sum of their parts. They have no nature that maintains their identity throughout time. That is why a bunch of nails and boards can be turned into a house. And if you decided to replace a roof or a wall, you’d technically have a different house then the one you moved into. (20)
Second, a human is not a property thing. We simply do not see human animals disappearing and person substances walking around in their place as Olson pointed out. So, Greasley could try to use this type of argument to rebut George and Tollefsen but it would make her sound ridiculous.
Lost
Greasley’s next proposal is to suggest that we can lose or gain the property of personhood over our lifetime. As we already saw, this is what essential personhood argues, so it would affirm that view, not refute it. However, it would be a challenge to George and Tollefsen’s view that we are essentially human organisms. If she could show that we are a person substance, or that we are essentially our psychological capacities instead of our bodies, then it would lend credibility to the idea we come to share matter with the fetus. The fetus itself would never become a person. George and Tollefsen’s argument that we are essentially human organisms would thus have a defeater.
If she took that track though, George and Tollefsen’s question could again be raised: if the fetus continues to exist, how can the fetus not share all the same properties of the person, and if it does share all the properties, how is it not also a person? (21) It seems more likely, however, that such a proposition could just not be true. For, just like the idea that we could change from substances of the human organism kind to substances of the person kind, this model leads absurdities too. Christopher Kaczor lists them as “you are not a human being, you were not born, and you are not made of flesh and blood. If body-self dualism is correct, your mother has never hugged you (since no one hugs the aims, desires and awareness that constitutes a person.)” (22)
Beating the Dead Horse Again
Greasley’s third suggestion about denying that we are numerically identical with embryo, zygote, and fetus is just denying that we are essentially human organisms again. Therefore, this objection is subject to all the same problems I’ve outlined. All in all, the first half of her case against George and Tollefsen fails.
Why is this Important?
It might seem like I picked a really random passage to focus on. Why not pick one where a pro-choice proponent really gives it to a pro-lifer? I’m glad you asked.
I hear some pro-lifers say that they would never spend money on a book written by a pro-choicer. Instead, they will only read what pro-lifers say about pro-abortion literature. By not reading their stuff though, we might miss out on how they are misrepresenting us. It is important to know that so we can clear up misconceptions. (Conversely we might also be unaware of when our own side has misrepresented them. As a result, we may employ faulty counter arguments. I’ve seen that happen too.)
What I’m hoping then is that this will encourage anyone reading this article to check out the primary sources on both sides.
Conclusion
This article has looked at Greasley’s representation of George’s and Tollefsen’s arguments. It has concluded that she has misattributed a view like her own to them. Her arguments against George’s and Tollefsen’s real case falls short as a result. In part 2, I will look at how she defends dualism from their critiques.
References
(1) Kate Greasley, Arguments About Abortion: Personhood, Morality, and Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 129.
(2) Greasley, Arguments About Abortion, 129-130.
(3) Greasley, Arguments About Abortion, 130.
(4) Greasley, Arguments About Abortion, 131.
(5) Warren Quinn, “Abortion and Identity Loss,” in Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1, no. 1, [1984], 34.
(6) Quinn, “Abortion and Identity Loss,” 34.
(7) Geeasley, Arguments About Abortion, 132.
(8) Quinn, “Abortion and Identity Loss,” 36.
(9) Greasley, Arguments About Abortion, 132.
(10) Greasley, Arguments About Abortion, 132.
(11) Greasley, Arguments About Abortion, 132-133.
(12) Robert P. George and Christopher Tollefsen, Embryo: A Defense of Human Life (Princeton: The Witherspoon Institute, 2011), 893. (kindle ed.)
(13) George and Tollefsen, Embryo, 939. (kindle ed.)
(14) George and Tollefsen, Embryo, 914. (kindle ed.)
(15) George and Tollefsen, Embryo, 939. (kindle ed.)
(16) George and Tollefsen, Embryo, 1156. (kindle ed.)
(17) Erik T. Olson, ““Was I Ever a Fetus?” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, LVII, no. 1, [1997], 100.
(18) George and Tollefsen, Embryo, 1156-1163. (kindle ed.)
(19) Greasley, Arguments About Abortion, 164-165, 191-195.
(20) Scott Klusendorf, The Case for Life: Equipping Christians to Engage the Culture (Wheaton: Crossway, 2009), 50.
(21) George and Tollefsen, Embryo, 939.
(22) Christopher Kaczor, The Ethics of Abortion: Human Rights, Women’s Rights, and the Question of Justice (New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis, 2023), 18.
Cover photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash
Born in Vancouver, B.C., Chris has been married to Amy since 2017. He has a BA in Religious Studies (Youth Leadership), and an MA in Theological Studies (Apologetics). He enjoys acting, evangelism, and debates.
A Frustrating Argument About Abortion: Part 1
Chris Christiansen
The People of the State of California v. Heartbeat International and RealOptions
NEW REGISTRY: Mama Suffered Spinal Cord Injury & Needs Help
Abortion Laws, Definitions, and Exceptions in all 50 States
Saving Babies, One Letter at a Time: Discover Letters of Hope
Avery Becomes 83rd Sanctuary City for the Unborn
Part 2 has been published and can be read here.
Introduction
Kate Greasley released a book in 2017 called Arguments About Abortion. Coming in at 267 pages, it is dense, packed with her own arguments, summaries of other authors’ points, and her responses. Her belief is that abortion can only be morally justified if the unborn are not persons. It would be hard to do her whole book justice in one review.
Instead, I wanted to look at one section of her book where she heavily engages with Robert P. George and Christopher Tollefsen’s book, Embryo, which strives to show that the unborn are persons with a right to life. That section of Greasley’s book can be broken into two parts. First she critiques their argument for personhood essentialism. Second, she interacts with their critiques of dualism.
There is a lot of information to cover so I will respond to her in two articles. In both articles, I will ask two questions:
1. Does she represent George and Tollefsen fairly?
2. Do Greasley’s rebuttals work?
The first part of this essay will focus on summarizing her points. The second half will offer a critique.
Summary
What is George and Tollefsen’s argument?
According to Greasley, George and Tollefsen argue for a view known as personhood essentialism. She writes,
An example of an accidental characteristic for me might be the fact that I have curly hair and blue eyes. I could be bald, or have no eyes at all, and I would still be me, Chris. An essential characteristic of mine would be my membership in the human species. I could not have been a cat and remain the same basic thing.
According to Greasley, George and Tollefsen use the example of a dog named Rufus. It is an essential property of Rufus that he belongs to the species dog. Rufus has accidental properties like being able to run. He will not cease to be a dog if he becomes paralyzed. But he would not be able to exist as anything besides a dog. Being a dog is his essential property. (2)
How does this play into George’s and Tollefsen’s argument for essential personhood? They argue that being a person is an essential property of a human person. That means there could not be a time when a human being is not a person. He’d have to be a person through every stage of his life. Since being a zygote, embryo, and fetus are stages of his life, he would have to be a person during those times as well. If human organisms lost or gained that property, they would go out of existence. (3) She breaks down their argument the following way:
1. A being cannot change substantially (or essentially) and remain the same individual thing.
2. Mature human beings are numerically identical with the zygotes and embryos which begat them. I was once a fetus and that fetus was me.
3. Personhood is an essential property of all creatures which are persons, thus
4. C1: If I am a person, so was the zygote, embryo, and fetus which were identical with me, and
5. C2: I am a person, therefore so was the zygote, embryo, and fetus from whence I came. (4)
Greasley considers each premise in turn and offers various ways of challenging them.
A Substantive Argument
First, she suggests arguing that a change in an essential characteristic like personhood is possible. She uses Warren Quinn’s “process theory” of individuals to demonstrate how.
Quinn explains that “the coming to be of substantial individuals may be a genuine process in time in the course of which the prospective individual comes into existence gradually, entering the world by degrees.” (5) He likens the development of personhood to the two stages of building a house.
First, there is the preparatory process where the building materials are gathered together in preparation for the arrival of the house. In a similar way, the cells of the organism are gathered together for the arrival of what Quinn calls the biological animal. Second, there is the finishing process where the house and the organism are perfected by the changes and additions that take place in them. (6)
Greasley argues that as long as “whilst going through this construction process, the thing retains its numerical identity, then substantial change will be possible. The same individual which is only a person-in-process at one stage will be a person at another.” (7) Can a person retain its numerical identity through such substantial change? Quinn’s house analogy seems to suggest so. Just like a house under construction, is neither a house, nor a mere assemblage of materials, similarly a human under development is neither a person or a mere assemblage of cells. Over time, the object’s right to be called a house increases according to Quinn. In the same way a human’s right to be called a person increases. But the house and the human are still the same object throughout the change. (8)
In and Out Objection
Next Greasley proposes challenging the idea that personhood is an essential characteristic. Instead, she explains, it could be an accidental property that adults achieve later in life the way that they become doctors or lawyers. If this is true, she argues, then it would be coherent to say that the same human being can go through phases of being a person and a non-person throughout his or her existence, while remaining the same numerically identical thing.
She writes, “Again, the fact that quintessentially “person-like” traits such as self-awareness and consciousness do come and go in human beings might only bolster the claim that personhood is an accidental property.” (9) She also wonders if George and Tollefsen believe there are any other characteristics besides personhood that typical mature humans possess essentially. (10)
Celebrate the Differences
Finally, she considers denying the fact that mature human beings are numerically identical with the embryos and fetuses that came before them. This would make them different kinds of things from the earlier embryo, zygote, and fetus and allow the possibility that mature human beings have personhood while immature humans do not. (11)
Now that we’ve seen her summary of George and Tollefsen’s arguments, we can examine how accurately she represented them.
What George and Tollefsen Actually say
I use Kindle which means I can type in keywords when I am looking for a page. To figure out exactly which section of the book Greasley was referring to, I typed in the name of the aforementioned dog, Rufus. After reading through this section, it became clear to me that Greasley had utterly and completely missed George and Tollefsen’s point.
First, while she did a good job explaining accidental and essential characteristics, George and Tollefsen state quite clearly that they are not discussing what properties we essentially have, but rather what we are. (12)
Now, she could say “Okay, that’s an easy fix. They are arguing that what we are essentially is persons.” But that’s also not what this section is about. In fact, at one point they even say, “Now, we do not wish to deny that we are persons. Later in this chapter, we will briefly show how the fact that we are human beings is to be squared with the fact that we are persons.” (13) Two important points should be noted from this sentence.
1) They say they are going to discuss personhood later.
2) They tell us what they actually say we are: human beings.
Now she is right that they use the dog, Rufus, as an illustration for their argument. However, they don’t say that being a dog is an essential property of his. They say rather that a dog is what he is! This means that
“Rufus began to exist when this particular dog began to exist, and he will cease to exist when this particular dog ceases to exist. But he did not begin to exist when he began to run, or when he grew teeth, or when Smith purchased him; nor will he cease to exist if he ceases to possess the traits of running, having teeth, or living in Smith’s house…Rufus belongs to the substance kind dog and possesses accidents such as running, having teeth, and having hair.” (14)
How does this apply to humans? Well, as George and Tollefsen explain, we are essentially humans the way that Rufus is essentially a dog. That means that we began to exist when a particular human began to exist and we cease to exist when that particular human ceases to exist. But we did not begin to exist when that human being became conscious, has emotions, or memory retention. Nor will we will not cease to exist if the human organism goes into a coma, becomes emotionless, and loses all memory. We belong to the substance kind human essentially and possess accidental traits like consciousness, emotion and memory. (15)
Does the question of personhood essentialism come up at all in their book? Yes, but not in the way that Greasley thinks.
Duals over Dualism
Personhood essentialism is a type of dualism. Dualism is the very idea that George and Tollefsen are trying to refute by claiming that we are essentially human animals.
Personhood essentialism denies that we are human organisms and says that we are of the kind persons. This means we do not necessarily come into existence when our bodies do. Instead, the arrival of personhood usually coincides with the onset of certain psychological traits. (16)
One of the major issues with dualism is raised by philosopher Erik T. Olson, no pro-lifer himself. He explains how on this view, we were never fetuses. This raises the question of what happens to the fetus once the person comes into being. Does the fetus cease to exist while the person takes its place? Or does the fetus continue to exist while never becoming a person and just shares matter with the person that is numerically different from it? (17)
George and Tollefsen raise another question: if the fetus continues to exist, how can the fetus not share all the same properties of the person, and if it does share all the properties, how is it not also a person? On the other hand, if the fetus ceases to exist, does that mean that the person that is you or I is no longer a human? They argue, and I concur, that neither of these options seem metaphysically possible. Thus, it makes more sense to say that, myself, Greasley, them, and you who are reading this article are essentially human animals, and not essentially persons. Thus, we were once fetuses, and before that embryos. (18)
Now, let’s compare their argument with Greasley’s five point summary.
1) I think George and Tollefsen would agree that a being cannot change substantially from one kind of thing to another. But we need to clarify some terms. For Greasley, that means losing a certain property. For George and Tollefsen, that means becoming something other than a human organism which I think we can all agree is an absurd idea. But this is all an implication of their argument, not a premise of the argument itself.
2) Likewise, they would agree that we are numerically identical with the embryo, zygote and fetus. Once again however, this is an implication of the argument rather than a premise of it.
3) They would not say that personhood is an essential property. They would say that a person is what human organisms are.
4) C1 should therefore be written more like, “If human persons are essentially human organisms, then they began to exist as embryos and continued to exist through each stage of human development.”
5) C2 should read: “Human persons are essentially human organisms, therefore they began to exist as embryos and continued to exist through every stage of human development.”
Here’s the punchline of this whole essay. Essential personhood appears to be Greasley’s view! In her book, she explains her belief that humans only become persons once they are capable of sentience, rationality, emotionality, the ability to communicate, and agency. The personhood threshold is sometime after birth. (19)
That suggests she does not tie what we are to any part of our bodies, such as the brain, since all of that comes into existence before birth. Ergo, the person that we are must be of a different substance from the body all together. If Greasley was able to refute essential personhood, she’d be refuting herself. This makes it tempting to say that none of her rebuttals could actually affect George’s and Tollefsen’s argument. But, just for kicks, let’s try them out anyway.
Life as a House
Greasley’s use of Quinn’s house analogy is supposed to show us that it is possible to gain the property of personhood at a later stage in life while remaining the same thing. She could potentially tweak it to say that it is an example of one type of thing, nails and boards, turning into a different kind of thing, a house. Her argument would then be that it was possible for a human substance to turn into a person substance.
There are two problems with this however. First of all, a house is not a substance, it is a property thing. As Scott Klusendorf explains, property things are the sum of their parts. They have no nature that maintains their identity throughout time. That is why a bunch of nails and boards can be turned into a house. And if you decided to replace a roof or a wall, you’d technically have a different house then the one you moved into. (20)
Second, a human is not a property thing. We simply do not see human animals disappearing and person substances walking around in their place as Olson pointed out. So, Greasley could try to use this type of argument to rebut George and Tollefsen but it would make her sound ridiculous.
Lost
Greasley’s next proposal is to suggest that we can lose or gain the property of personhood over our lifetime. As we already saw, this is what essential personhood argues, so it would affirm that view, not refute it. However, it would be a challenge to George and Tollefsen’s view that we are essentially human organisms. If she could show that we are a person substance, or that we are essentially our psychological capacities instead of our bodies, then it would lend credibility to the idea we come to share matter with the fetus. The fetus itself would never become a person. George and Tollefsen’s argument that we are essentially human organisms would thus have a defeater.
If she took that track though, George and Tollefsen’s question could again be raised: if the fetus continues to exist, how can the fetus not share all the same properties of the person, and if it does share all the properties, how is it not also a person? (21) It seems more likely, however, that such a proposition could just not be true. For, just like the idea that we could change from substances of the human organism kind to substances of the person kind, this model leads absurdities too. Christopher Kaczor lists them as “you are not a human being, you were not born, and you are not made of flesh and blood. If body-self dualism is correct, your mother has never hugged you (since no one hugs the aims, desires and awareness that constitutes a person.)” (22)
Beating the Dead Horse Again
Greasley’s third suggestion about denying that we are numerically identical with embryo, zygote, and fetus is just denying that we are essentially human organisms again. Therefore, this objection is subject to all the same problems I’ve outlined. All in all, the first half of her case against George and Tollefsen fails.
Why is this Important?
It might seem like I picked a really random passage to focus on. Why not pick one where a pro-choice proponent really gives it to a pro-lifer? I’m glad you asked.
I hear some pro-lifers say that they would never spend money on a book written by a pro-choicer. Instead, they will only read what pro-lifers say about pro-abortion literature. By not reading their stuff though, we might miss out on how they are misrepresenting us. It is important to know that so we can clear up misconceptions. (Conversely we might also be unaware of when our own side has misrepresented them. As a result, we may employ faulty counter arguments. I’ve seen that happen too.)
What I’m hoping then is that this will encourage anyone reading this article to check out the primary sources on both sides.
Conclusion
This article has looked at Greasley’s representation of George’s and Tollefsen’s arguments. It has concluded that she has misattributed a view like her own to them. Her arguments against George’s and Tollefsen’s real case falls short as a result. In part 2, I will look at how she defends dualism from their critiques.
References
(1) Kate Greasley, Arguments About Abortion: Personhood, Morality, and Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 129.
(2) Greasley, Arguments About Abortion, 129-130.
(3) Greasley, Arguments About Abortion, 130.
(4) Greasley, Arguments About Abortion, 131.
(5) Warren Quinn, “Abortion and Identity Loss,” in Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1, no. 1, [1984], 34.
(6) Quinn, “Abortion and Identity Loss,” 34.
(7) Geeasley, Arguments About Abortion, 132.
(8) Quinn, “Abortion and Identity Loss,” 36.
(9) Greasley, Arguments About Abortion, 132.
(10) Greasley, Arguments About Abortion, 132.
(11) Greasley, Arguments About Abortion, 132-133.
(12) Robert P. George and Christopher Tollefsen, Embryo: A Defense of Human Life (Princeton: The Witherspoon Institute, 2011), 893. (kindle ed.)
(13) George and Tollefsen, Embryo, 939. (kindle ed.)
(14) George and Tollefsen, Embryo, 914. (kindle ed.)
(15) George and Tollefsen, Embryo, 939. (kindle ed.)
(16) George and Tollefsen, Embryo, 1156. (kindle ed.)
(17) Erik T. Olson, ““Was I Ever a Fetus?” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, LVII, no. 1, [1997], 100.
(18) George and Tollefsen, Embryo, 1156-1163. (kindle ed.)
(19) Greasley, Arguments About Abortion, 164-165, 191-195.
(20) Scott Klusendorf, The Case for Life: Equipping Christians to Engage the Culture (Wheaton: Crossway, 2009), 50.
(21) George and Tollefsen, Embryo, 939.
(22) Christopher Kaczor, The Ethics of Abortion: Human Rights, Women’s Rights, and the Question of Justice (New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis, 2023), 18.
Cover photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash
Chris Christiansen
Born in Vancouver, B.C., Chris has been married to Amy since 2017. He has a BA in Religious Studies (Youth Leadership), and an MA in Theological Studies (Apologetics). He enjoys acting, evangelism, and debates.
The views and opinions expressed in these articles are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Human Defense Initiative.
Chris Christiansen
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