Don't let society define some as nonpersons, speaker urges conference

Published: 2005-12-08

ROCKVILLE CENTRE, N.Y. (CNS) -- The unborn, people with certain disabilities and the dying are all in danger of being defined as nonpersons, bioethicist Wesley Smith warned in his address to the annual Respect Life Convocation sponsored by the Rockville Centre Diocese. Quoting prominent bioethicists and mainstream medical journals to illustrate a trend toward dividing humanity into persons and nonpersons, Smith said the "most important question facing us in the 21st century is this: Does human life have ultimate intrinsic value simply and merely because it is human?" The Nov. 19 convocation drew about 160 people to St. Agnes parish center in Rockville Centre. In his keynote address on "Bioethics: Creating a Disposable Caste," Smith said that for those who do not uphold all human life as sacred there are two other popular redefinitions of what it means to be a person -- to feel pain or to be self-aware. The former excludes the unborn in the earliest stages before they have developed a central nervous system, he said, while the latter also excludes the unborn, as well as infants, those with certain mental disabilities, the dying and many others.

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