Defending abortion during a debate at Canada’s Dalhousie University, Dr. Mark Mercer downplayed the whole problem of killing fetuses, saying babies aren’t even even “persons” until they are 18 months old.

The philosophy professor from St. Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, argued that the notion of whether a fetus is human is not a “morally relevant concept.” Humans, he said, are not special by virtue of their “species membership,” but become “persons” around age 1½ and only then are worthy of protection because they possess certain “ethically salient properties” such as the ability to experience pain, pleasure, self-consciousness and rationality.

“According to Mercer,” reported Patrick B. Craine, Canadian bureau chief for LifeSiteNews.com, “a child likely only gains personhood at around 18 months to two years of age. Though he said he couldn’t imagine a reason to justify killing a born child given the availability of adoption, he said upon further questioning that ‘if the child isn’t a person, it’s not an offense against the child to kill it.'”

Somewhat startled by Dr. Mercer’s position, Stephanie Gray, co-founder and executive director of the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform, cited the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It speaks of “humans” and not “persons,” she said, pointing to pre-Civil War slavery and the Nazi holocaust – in which victims were considered only slightly better than animals. Nazi propaganda portrayed Jews as “sub-human” and “vermin.”

“We have a nasty history of denying our fellow human beings the right to live because we divorce the concept of ‘human’ and ‘person’ as to treat them as two separate things,” Gray said. “Human is an objective term that we can determine scientifically. Person is a philosophical or legal term which has had a changing definition throughout history.”
 
“I don’t understand what this thing humanity is or the property of being human,” answered Dr. Mercer, “such that an anancephalic infant is a rational being just as the rest of us. Here’s a creature who doesn’t have a capability and yet it’s still in the essence of that creature that it has that capability.  That makes no sense to me.”
 
Dr. Mercer is chairperson of the philosophy department at St. Mary’s. He has in the past come under criticism from abortion proponents for defending the right of anti-abortion activists to express their opinions on university campuses. Such was the case at this debate when a group of pro-abortion activists attempted to disrupt the event by ripping down publicity posters beforehand, setting off stink-bombs during the debate, and covering the ceiling with helium balloons featuring pro-abortion slogans.

The March 9 debate, organized by the student group Pro-Life at Dal, attracted about 150 students and members of the public.

To that, Dr. Mercer countered: “I think it’s pretty clear that their level of awareness, their level of self-consciousness, their level of rationality is lower than that of a typical adult cow. If it’s not unethical to kill an adult cow to serve human needs then it’s not unethical to kill a human fetus to serve some person’s needs, to serve some adult’s needs – or well, some person. I don’t know exactly when personhood comes. I imagine it’s around 18 months, maybe two years.”

He added that the fetus doesn’t “become a person until some time after birth. I’m not saying 18 months. I don’t know. I don’t think it’s easy to recognize.”

Defending such victims of abortion as the “anancephalic infant,” Gray argued that “just because some humans are damaged, so to speak, I would say that doesn’t mean that we can end their lives because they’re not as developed or ‘perfect’ as we are.”