2a: Binary Properties: Summary

Each¹ of these binary properties, when used as a criterion for personhood, runs into at least one of three problems. One is that the thresholds involved are always more or less arbitrary, which makes them poor candidates for embodying the crucial distinction between person and non-person. The second is that one would lose one’s personhood if one ever fell back below the threshold, and it is often obvious that personhood is not actually lost in these situations. The third problem is that many of these properties would exclude not only fetuses but also newborn infants and even toddlers from personhood; using one of them as the criterion for personhood would justify not only abortion but also infanticide. Most people agree that this is outrageous.