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Personhood

From: Gregor Wolbring
Date: 6/5/2002
Time: 10:51:51 AM
Remote Name: 136.159.117.12

Comments

Here a little bit more why I think it is important to change the term person or add a qualifier definition to it Now I wrote that comment with the background on the personhood debate among bioethicists where increasingly the term person is linked to a certain set of cognitive abilities. Like newborns are not seen as persons and so aren't disabled people of all ages if they don't fit certain criteriums in regards to their cognitive ability. Now most people are and will be seen in the future as persons and therefore are safe. But for disabled people this term has quite a few consequences. So in order to preempt the situation that changes in the understanding of what a person is would lead to the situation that some disabled people are not covered by the convention anymore I suggest that the term person is defined within the disability reality like saying "that cognitive abilities or for that matter any ability should not be a prerequisition for being a person" or something like that. THat would safeguard many disabled people from the danger of the ongoing debate about personhood. Or a sentence like that Acknowledging (or any other word) that no attribute of abilities is needed in order to be recognized and treated as a person

or as Maria Cristina suggested on the other list in response to my mail "perhaps the best way to deal with it is to suggest including language that specifies that no disability/impairment can be taken to deprive a person of any rights.