Page:Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.pdf/59

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Cite as: 597 U. S. ____ (2022)

51

Opinion of the Court

be entitled to legal protection until it acquires the characteristics that they regard as defining what it means to be a “person.” Among the characteristics that have been offered as essential attributes of “personhood” are sentience, self-awareness, the ability to reason, or some combination thereof.^[1] By this logic, it would be an open question whether even born individuals, including young children or those afflicted with certain developmental or medical conditions, merit protection as “persons.” But even if one takes the view that “personhood” begins when a certain attribute or combination of attributes is acquired, it is very hard to see why viability should mark the point where “personhood” begins.

The most obvious problem with any such argument is that viability is heavily dependent on factors that have nothing to do with the characteristics of a fetus. One is the

↑ See, e.g., P. Singer, Rethinking Life & Death 218 (1994) (defining a person as “a being with awareness of her or his own existence over time, and the capacity to have wants and plans for the future”); B. Steinbock, Life Before Birth: The Moral and Legal Status of Embryos and Fetuses 9–13 (1992) (arguing that “the possession of interests is both necessary and sufficient for moral status” and that the “capacity for conscious awareness is a necessary condition for the possession of interests” (emphasis deleted)); M. Warren, On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion, 57 The Monist 1, 5 (1973) (arguing that, to qualify as a person, a being must have at least one of five traits that are “central to the concept of personhood”: (1) “consciousness (of objects and events external and/or internal to the being), and in particular the capacity to feel pain”; (2) “reasoning (the developed capacity to solve new and relatively complex problems)”; (3) “self-motivated activity (activity which is relatively independent of either genetic or direct external control)”; (4) “the capacity to communicate, by whatever means, messages of an indefinite variety of types”; and (5) “the presence of self-concepts, and self-awareness, either individual or racial, or both” (emphasis deleted)); M. Tooley, Abortion & Infanticide, 2 Philosophy & Pub. Affairs 37, 49 (Autumn 1972) (arguing that “having a right to life presupposes that one is capable of desiring to continue existing as a subject of experiences and other mental states”).

[1] See, e.g., P. Singer, Rethinking Life & Death 218 (1994) (defining a person as “a being with awareness of her or his own existence over time, and the capacity to have wants and plans for the future”); B. Steinbock, Life Before Birth: The Moral and Legal Status of Embryos and Fetuses 9–13 (1992) (arguing that “the possession of interests is both necessary and sufficient for moral status” and that the “capacity for conscious awareness is a necessary condition for the possession of interests” (emphasis deleted)); M. Warren, On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion, 57 The Monist 1, 5 (1973) (arguing that, to qualify as a person, a being must have at least one of five traits that are “central to the concept of personhood”: (1) “consciousness (of objects and events external and/or internal to the being), and in particular the capacity to feel pain”; (2) “reasoning (the developed capacity to solve new and relatively complex problems)”; (3) “self-motivated activity (activity which is relatively independent of either genetic or direct external control)”; (4) “the capacity to communicate, by whatever means, messages of an indefinite variety of types”; and (5) “the presence of self-concepts, and self-awareness, either individual or racial, or both” (emphasis deleted)); M. Tooley, Abortion & Infanticide, 2 Philosophy & Pub. Affairs 37, 49 (Autumn 1972) (arguing that “having a right to life presupposes that one is capable of desiring to continue existing as a subject of experiences and other mental states”).

[1]