A survey on what pro-choice people often mean by "human beings"

I ran a survey to seek what pro-choice people often mean by "human being." 

Below is the survey, the results, and then some quick commentary. 

SURVEY 

RESULTS

12 responses

 

Link to Sheets

 

Summary

Question

Individual

Is a biologically human embryo a "human being"?12 responses

 

Copy chart

Yes.	0
No.	7
It depends on what you mean.	4
That's unknowable or can't be reasonably answered.	0
I have another answer or response.	1

If you answered "yes, a biologically human embryo is 'human being', what do you mean by 'human being'?0 responses

No responses yet for this question.

If you answered "no, a biologically human embryo is not a 'human being', what do you mean by 'human being'?7 responses

To me, the word "being" implies completeness and individuation.

An organism with the typical characteristic features and biological functions of homo sapiens

A human being is first and foremost a being that can live without another being as a host. Human beings are not parasites.

Part of the concept of a "being" is intelligence and consciousness. Late-term fetuses are beginning to show those but an embryo does not.

A human person, i.e. a human organism who has the moral status paradigmatically assigned to fully rational beings

A born person, especially one capable of conscious experience, including self-awareness.

Until it pops out of the woman and starts crawling, walking around and talking and learning it should be no one's business but the woman's. Until then, it is an appendage of her body.

If you answered "it depends on what you mean by 'human being' regarding whether a biologically human embryo is or is not not a 'human being', what do you mean by 'human being'?4 responses

In general, I mean a biologically individual (and individuated) human but because the phrase "human being is contested in the context of abortion, I don't use that phrase to distinguish between entities that have moral status and those that don't

I mean different things depending on the context and what I'm trying to convey. I could be using a more biological sense, or a more specific subset of human organisms, or I even could be referring to human-like things.

It is biologically a human being in that it is human and is alive, but “human being” usually carries a sympathetic connotation meant to compare the embryo to the humans we interact with. If I were asked whether it’s a “human being” in the sense of whether I think it’s comparable to a human infant, child, or adult in the way that they are “human beings,” I would say no.

Biologically yes--a biologically human organism; morally no, since not a human person.

If you answered "that's unknowable or it can't be reasonably answered whether a biologically human embryo is or is not a 'human being', what do you mean by 'human being'?0 responses

No responses yet for this question.

If you another answer or response, please enter it here.1 response

I generally say the ZEF is human material. I accept that "human being" can be used, but I feel like I am being more specific.

COMMENTARY

Some initial comments:

• This survey has low response numbers, which is not surprising since I have a small "platform" (since, among other reasons, pro-choice folks and organizations aren't much interested in evaluating ethical arguments about abortion; indeed that irrationalist tendency is built in to many current "liberal" or "leftist" outlooks and forms of social engagement, which doesn't seem to be working out great for them, and us).  
• I asked about embryos not fetuses because many people seem to think of far later fetuses whenever they hear or see 'fetuses' even when they are told that the issue is early fetuses, pre-conscious fetuses. So I asked about embryos to avoid that potential confusion. 
• These questions are open-ended, which increases the chances of people not engaging the survey: people have to think to answer the questions, which discourages responses: more effort is required than selecting from pre-set choices or any "yes/no" or "true/false" questions. In other words, this type of survey is likely to be only answered by more reflective, thoughtful people. 

The best answer to the question--Is a biologically human embryo a "human being"?"--is that "it depends on you mean by human being," and many respondents responded accordingly. 

Nobody responded with a simple "yes," affirming something like "embryos are 'human beings' in the sense of biologically human organisms and that's all there is to say about that: there are no complexities to address here."

Some respondents rightly responded that (human) embryos are biologically human, etc. That's good.

But these people and the people who answered "no" presented an understanding of "human beings" that emphasized characteristics like these:

"completeness and individuation," "characteristic features and biological functions of homo sapiens," " intelligence and consciousness," "moral status paradigmatically assigned to fully rational beings," "born person, especially one capable of conscious experience, including self-awareness."

These are characteristics that you might identify from focusing on the typical human beings we encounter, and the types of answers that we've seen throughout history when people ask profound questions like "what does it mean to be a human being?" and write and sing songs about being human. For both of these, the answer or issue isn't resolved by any tone-deaf, "Duh, to be human is to be a biologically human organism!"--the issue is about the thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and experiences that people have.

Everyone, of course, is familiar with that rough meaning or use of "human": anti-abortion people just forget about it when they hear anyone claim that embryos aren't human: they are triggered and then become unable to ask the person "What do you mean by 'human'?" and then actually listen to their answer. Perhaps this small survey will help some of them do that. 

Note: since posting this, a few more people have completed this survey. Unfortunately, there appears to be no easy to way to display the "feed" of results of this survey: the results have to be displayed manually. So perhaps I will update these results at some point.