What is a Legal Person?

If we set aside for a moment the idea of “thinking” as being the defining characteristic of a person, we have to look at the legalities of the question above. In a different historical times, the definition of a “legal” person has depended on: race Gender Ability (or diability)

For example, in Canada: Until 1993, the Canada Elections Act excluded from voting “every person who is restrained of his liberty of movement or deprived of the management of his property by reason of mental disease.” FNMI Canadians didn’t have the fill and total right to vote in federal elections until 1960.

Women were not allowed to vote in federal elections until 1918. Women were not legally considered “persons” until the Famous Five (led by Nellie McClung and Emily Murphy) too their case to the Supreme Court of Canada and then the British Privy Council in 1928. The debate of when someone legally becomes a “person” is prominent when it comes to discussing abortion.

Judith Jarvis Thomson (b. 1929) American philosopher Addresses the issue of whether an unborn human being, a foetus, is or isn’t a person She said: “we shall probably have to agree that the foetus has already become a human person well before birth.”

The question becomes: whose right to life is greater? Therefore, If a foetus has “person” rights before birth, then it has a right to life. However… The pregnant women also has rights. The question becomes: whose right to life is greater? Thomson’s argument: -A foetus becomes a “person” before birth -there are, however, cases where abortion could be permissible, Eg pregnancy due to rape

However, she continues: If, in some unusual circumstance, an attempted abortion does not result in the foetus’ death, it maintain its right to life IF it can survive on its own. Her focus here becomes on biological aspects of survival , and less on the definition of a person as a “thinking” or “conscious” being. Her focus is not on the foetus as a person but on the prioritization of rights

Michael Tooley (b 1941) An Australian Philosopher He claims that foetuses are not persons He also claims that small children are not persons

For Tooley, a person “must have a concept of self that continues over time, as well as a particular interest in his or her own continued existence’ In his interpretation, children have basic interests (ex they want to avoid pain) but they don’t understand themselves as existing in the future. Children and foetuses have rights, just not as “persons”.

Crash Course: personhood https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxM9BZeRrUI