Dr. De Marco is a frequent contributor to Linacre. His current article examines the relationship of the word  human  and the mode of application of that term to the foetus

De Marco, Donald

English

epublications@Marquette

The Linacre QuarterlyVolume 41 | Number 4 Article 7November 1974The Foetus, His Humanity and His RightsDonald De MarcoFollow this and additional works at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnqRecommended CitationDe Marco, Donald (1974) "The Foetus, His Humanity and His Rights," The Linacre Quarterly: Vol. 41: No. 4, Article 7.Available at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnq/vol41/iss4/7The Foetus, His Humanity and His Rights Donald De Marco, Ph.D . Dr. De Marco is a frequent con-tributor to Linacre. His current article examines the relationship of the word " human" and the mode of application of that term to the foetus. Dr. De Marco is a professor at St. Jerome's College in Waterloo , Ontario. We know wha t something is when we know its causes. From Aristotle to the present, this stric-ture has remained universally respectable. While there have been various opinions expressed throughout history concerning which of Aristotle's four causes should be investigated in any giv-en discipline and how these priv-ileged causes should be ap-proached, they have, nonetheless, enjoyed a time honored usage, providing invaluable objective correlatives for a major part of Western philosophical and sci -entific thought. We ask the question, "what is '. that something which exists with-in a human mother and develops over a nine month period until its time of birth?" There is spec-November, 1974 ulation that t his something is "human." But the word "human" seems at once both highly appro-priate and highly inappropriate. Further reflection reveals that the word "human" is not always used univocally in describing the hu-man foetus and the human adult ; nor is the word "human" used univocally in describing a human achievement and human hair. However, the ambiguity of the word "human" is resolved when each of its four different senses is related to each of the four tra-ditional Aristotelian causes. In this way, the discussion of how the word "human" is applied to the foetus gains the objective ad-vantages that a correlation with Aristotle's four causes naturally provides. The four causes represent a hierarchic order, the higher causes subsuming the lower causes. Thus, the final cause, which sets into motion the other three causes and is said to be the cause of causes, subsumes the formal, ma-terial, and efficient causes; the formal cause, for which the mate-281 rial cause exists, subsumes the material and efficient causes; the material cause, which requires an impetus from its immediately prior efficient cause in order for it to come into being, subsumes the efficient cause. Four uses of the word "human" and their mode of application to the foetus are set forth below in correlation with each of the four causes taken in ascending hier-archic order. As Efficient Cause The efficient cause is extrinsic to its effect. Also, as immediately prior to its effect, it is not, as such, directly involved in its ef-fect's final ordination or perfec-tion . For these two reasons, the efficient cause tells us less about its effect than do any of the other causes. We speak of great art works or great engineering feats as "re-markable human achievements." In this way, we distinguish them from natural wonders and at-tribute to them human efficient causality. Human art is "human" primarily because it is made by humans. However, insofar as hu-mans merely make things, noth-ing which is materially human inheres in what is made. This use of the word "human," therefore, has no substantial or real appli-cation to the foetus; it is used only to describe an artifact such as a model of a human foetus which is employed for instruction-al purposes. As Efficient and Material Causes The material cause tells us about the fundamental intrinsic 282 makeup of a thing. It does not specify the form or the nature of a being, but describes its compos-ing parts. We speak of human hair, hu-man skin, or human protoplasm. In this sense, the word "human" denotes not only something which is efficiently caused by a human, but something which contains hu-man matter. Human hair, as well as any other human part, con-tains human substance. Properly speaking, the human organism produces human parts, as the liver produces bile or the salivary glands produce saliva. Here the word "human" under-applies to the foetus because the foetus is not produced by one hu-man organism, nor is it a material part of a human organism. As Efficient, Material, and Formal Causes The formal cause tells us about the specific organization of a be-ing, its nature or formal constitu-tion. It tells us more than does the material cause by specifying how a being's totality is served by the functioning of all its material parts. We speak of a human form to denote an empirically identifiable human entity, or human organ-ism. Properly speaking, human forms or human orgainsms are procreated by human parents. The word procreate implies that the offspring is more than a ma-terial part produced by another; the offspring enjoys a human, or-ganismic form of its own. Since the foetus is a human form, or a human organism, the word "hu-Linacre Quarterly man" in its formal sense properly applies. However, from the foetus's ear-liest moment of actuality, devel-opment, or movement, he is under the influence of that finality to-ward which his organismic vitality tends him. Hence, he participates, to a degree, in a final human form that perfects and completes his present organismic human form. The word "human" in its formal sense, therefore, applies properly but imperfectly to him. As Efficient, Material, Formal, and Final Causes The final cause adds the note of perfection, of completing all that the subject is supposed to complete. It adds to a form which is empirically identifiable as hu-man a perfection which is nor-matively identifiable as human. We speak of a human being to denote one who has everything he should have in order to be fully human, the adult, the mature per-son. However, to be absolutely precise, there are no perfected hu-man beings and here the word "human" refers to human forms who are well on their way toward realizing a host of human per-fections. Properly speaking, one perfects himself in becoming more truly a human being. In this sense, the word "human" over-applies to the foetus. However, it should be add-ed that it also somewhat over-applies to even saints. Nonethe-less, one is more human the more he approximates his final cause, the more he identifies with what he ought to be. The Foetus and Human Rights There is no intrinsic dynamic tendency that moves from a hu-man achievement (or artifact) to a human part (The Picture of Dorian Gray notwithstanding), or SUMMARY TABLE Cause(s) Uses of the word Verb specifying Mode of appl ica tion "Human" the act which to the foet us relates the cause(s) to its (their) "human" effect s Efficien t h uman achievement makes Efficient, Material human part produces Efficient, Mater ia l, Formal human fo rm procreates Effic ient, Material, Formal, Final human being perfect s November, 1974 not a real applicat ion under-application p roper application (although imperfec t ) over-application (over-application to a mature a dult , a l-though to a consider-ably lesser degree) 283 from a human achievement (or artifact) to a human form (Pyg-malion notwithstanding), or from a human part t o a human form (the formation of Minerva from Jupiter's forehead notwithstand-ing). However, there is an intrin-sic dynamic tendency within a living human form (such as the foetus, properly speaking) which moves toward a more perfect form (the human being, properly speak-ing) . The foetus as an active hu-man form tends toward his per-fection as a more complete human being; the empirical human who is tends, by his own natural weight, to become the normative human who ought to be. Because of this natural, active tendency in humans, from form to finality, we say that everyone has a right to become what he ought to be. The claim to be more perfect, to be-come what one ought to become, is recognized in the very fact of that dynamic tendency which ex-presses itself in the development of the human foetus. The foetus, from its incipience, is involved in his finality; the saint, in the most glorious moments of his humani-ty, does not realize the absolute fulfillment of his finality. The foetus as well as the saint are both, t') borrow Heidegger's ex-pression, "moving into the near-ness of distance." The rights of the foetus, there-284 fore, are his natural claims to pre-serve and develop the dynamic tendency which is the intrinsic expression of his human form, so that he is able to participate more fully in that finality which is per-fective of his being. Human freedom, then, to quote Heidegger once more, is "the let-ting be of what is." "Letting be" allows "what ought to be" to emanate; "what is" is the human form that presents the claim to be what it ought to be. In a just and loving, democratic society, the human right of the foetus to be allowed to become more fully human is recognized and protected. In an authoritari-an and power-oriented, totalitari-an society, this right is neither recognized nor protected. The fact that the foetus exists and develops within a human mother, who has human rights of her own, complicates the prag-matics of abortion where there is or appears to be a conflict of rights between the mother and her foetus . However, no degree of pragmatic complexity should ob-scure 1) the real claim the foetus has for the recognition and pro-tection of his human rights and 2) his status as a human form already intimately involved in his finality, at once a human form and a dynamic process of becom-ing a more perfect human being. Linacre Quarterly 

The Foetus, His Humanity and His Rights

https://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1309&amp;context=lnq

The Foetus, His Humanity and His Rights

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

epublications@Marquette