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Jennifer and I became pre-occupied with our own thoughts for a bit. On the one hand, I was attending to the process of driving. On the other hand, I was reflecting on some of the things that she had said this evening. These actions were interspersed with various considerations concerning my forthcoming trip to Washington.

After awhile, Jennifer began speaking again. Her comments seemed to be a follow-up to her earlier remarks on the legal/extra-legal distinction surrounding the issues of personhood and abortion.

"Of course," Jennifer said, "some people object to the use of extra-legal arguments which, from their point of view, are tainted by spiritual considerations. They claim our founding fathers ... I guess there were no women in the colonies ..., anyway, such people claim the framers of the constitution intended for there to be a strict separation between church and state.

"Given the history of religious persecution that caused many people to flee to the Americas from their European homelands, and given, oddly enough, the religious persecution which arose in many places in the colonies amongst those who, themselves, had been victims of such persecution, the importance of ensuring that no one religion should be able to dictate state or national political policy is an extremely fundamental principle. There is a corollary, however, to this principle that few people seem to understand.

"As much as there needs to be legal protection against permitting any one religious point of view to influence democratic processes, there also needs to be legal protection against permitting any one philosophical point of view from having untoward influence on the democratic process. Consequently, the various species of secular humanism have no more right to dominate democratic institutions than do the various species of religion.

"The principle which underlies the clause in the Bill of Rights dealing with the separation of church and state is neither religious per se, nor is it, in essence, secular in character. This principle is one of fairness and justice ... a principle whose wisdom can be understood and appreciated by people of both religious and secular orientations.

"The principle at issue stipulates that one cannot arbitrarily give a competitive edge to any one religious or philosophical perspective because to do so would permit, at least potentially, the kinds of persecution and oppression that the principle is designed to help us avoid. Instead, there must be a series of checks and balances which allow a variety of perspectives to be given intellectual and behavioral expression.

"A constitution is not predicated on the truth of things. Such a document is preoccupied with procedural justice or fairness.

"Irrespective of the ultimate truth of a given religious or secular position, democracies should be committed to establishing a social environment that permits different interpretations, theories, models and systems of truth to be treated with procedural fairness. To reject, out of hand, extra-legal arguments concerning the possible spiritual nature of an embryo or foetus is to abandon the principles of procedural fairness in which our democracy is constitutionally rooted.

"Moreover, even if, on some specified grounds of procedural fairness, one were to permit the rejection of extra-legal arguments of a spiritual nature in the issue of personhood, this does not automatically permit one to accept extra-legal arguments of a secular kind concerning the nature of personhood. In fact, whatever the specified grounds of procedural fairness are that are being cited as justification for rejecting extra-legal, spiritually-oriented arguments concerning personhood, these same sort of grounds also could be cited in relationship to the rejection of extra-legal, secularly oriented arguments in relation to the problem of personhood.

"Unfortunately, the whole process of adjudication, especially at the level of the Supreme Court, is being, and, for some time, has been, sucked into a quagmire of unresolved issues. These involve the difficulties inherent in not only defining what is to be meant by, but determining what is to be the relationship between, legal and extra-legal considerations.

"More specifically, a legion of important terms have been left undefined in both The Declaration of Independence as well as The Constitution of the United States. Thus, among other things, even though certain, crucial words are used in these documents, one finds no clear stipulations of meaning concerning the nature

of, for instance: truth, equality, laws of nature, God, rights, the logic of necessity and self-evident propositions, men, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, justice, consent, despotism, duty, public good, domestic tranquillity, general welfare, judicial power, good behavior, free exercise of religion, freedom of speech, to keep and bear arms, unreasonable search and seizure, probable cause, due process, just compensation, impartial jury, cruel and unusual punishment, common law, excessive bail/fines, and equal protection.

"The meaning, value, and significance of all these themes are interpreted by members of the judiciary. Consequently, one is confronted by a delicate situation since although the procedures for becoming a member of the judiciary may be fairly well-regulated in a legal sense, the processes of interpretation employed by the judiciary are no where clearly specified in, or regulated by, law.

"Thus, the questions which need to be answered are several. To begin with, are the philosophical and/or religious assumptions, theories, beliefs, biases, values, concerns, understandings, commitments, interests, and priorities of a judge legal or extra-legal? In either case, how does one reconcile these substantive factors with the clear emphasis given in the Constitution to purely procedural issues?

"Given that only eight of the thirty-nine people who were signatories of the Constitution also were among the fifty-six individuals who signed the Declaration of Independence, is the relationship between the two documents legal or extra-legal? Furthermore, in either case, what is the nature of that relationship and what, if any, role do the intentions of either group of people have concerning the nature of the Constitution?

"In addition, under what authority did any of these people have the right to represent, and make decisions on behalf of, all of the people in the thirteen original colonies? Was this authority and 'right' legal or extra-legal?

"Are the intentions of the framers of either document legal or extra-legal? In either case, how does one reconcile underlying differences of intention amongst the framers, and is such a process of reconciliation legal or extra-legal?

"Finally, what is the precise character of the obligation that ties later generations to either the intentions of the framers or the practices and interpretations of previous members of the judiciary? Is the nature of this obligation legal or extra-legal? And, under what circumstances, is one people, in line with the spirit of the Declaration of Independence, entitled to dissolve 'the political bands which have connected them with another' people?

"All of the foregoing questions bear on the abortion dispute. Neither those who are pro-choice nor those who are pro-life should suppose any of these issues are simple and straightforward.

"Differences in the way various people answer such fundamental issues of democracy, present more than a problem of epistemology. In other words, the difficulty is not just a matter of needing to know which, if any, of the positions are correct.

"The more pressing problem is to try to figure out how to proceed in conditions of uncertainty when there are a multiplicity of competing perspectives. The attitudes, intentions, motivations, integrity and humility with which we engage problems under these circumstances is as important as are the methods and substantive solutions to which we become committed during such a process of engagement.

"Sometimes, the problems that arise out of differences are even greater than the original problem out of which the differences initially arose. Abortion is one issue. The hatred, misery, cruelty, death, divisions, alienation, conflict, terrorism and social dissolution that are generated by the differences over this issue are quite another matter.

"Irrespective of whom may be correct in the original debate, no one has the inalienable right to be intemperate in his or her treatment of those with whom one differs. Irrespective of whatever evil may, or may not, be done in any given abortion, evil is being done on each and every occasion we permit our differences to pump toxic emotional, psychological and behavioral wastes into our communities.

"If an individual, whether pro-life or pro-choice, feels compelled to do evil to prevent evil, then one needs to rethink one's motivations and strategy. If we introduce evil into the world for every evil which we try to remove, what really has been accomplished?

"Of course, if one likes, one can become a metaphysical bean-counter and assess the comparative negative utilities of different kinds of evil, but all kinds of evil corrode the fabric of both individual as well as collective life. What difference is there if one's existential and moral fabric are destroyed through, on the one hand, a few instances of massive corrosion or, on the other hand, by means of an armada of minor corrosions?"

"Jennifer, your comments on personhood and the abortion issue have triggered a few thoughts of my own. I had never considered these ideas relevant to the debate on abortion, but, maybe they are.

"In any event, I find it both interesting, as well as disturbing, that while the fetus is not accorded the legal status of a person, corporations are accorded such a status. As a result, a variety of legal entitlements and rights are extended to a corporation in its capacity as a 'person' that are not extended to a fetus.

"In fact, corporations enjoy rights that no living, biological person enjoys. For example, corporations are never put in prison for the deaths, both human and non-human, which its activities, products or services may cause in relation to its employees, to the general public or through the degradation of the environment.

"Moreover, multi-national corporations have even been accorded a status above the law, despite the popular myth propagated by officialdom in many democracies that, supposedly, no person is above the law. Many corporations use their extra-legal status to manipulate, corrupt, undermine, oppress, terrorize and exploit quite a few countries and peoples, and they do so, pretty much, with complete impunity.

"On occasion, a corporation may be found in violation of the provisions of some regulatory agency or other. Nevertheless, the penalties for such violations amount to little more than some tongue clucking, finger pointing, media posturing and, possibly, a ludicrously inadequate fine.

"An everyday, garden-variety type of living, biological person rarely, if ever, would get treated with such leniency. This is but one more example, among many others, that underlines the inequality existing between the corporate 'person' and a living, biological person.

"One cannot claim that the people who work for a corporation are the corporation since, for many different reasons, people come and go, but the corporation remains. Furthermore, more often than not, a corporation does not have to accede to the wishes of its employees. However, the reverse is not true, unless the employee is prepared to quit or be fired.

"On the other hand, one cannot claim that stockholders are synonymous with the corporation. In fact, corporations have a fiduciary responsibility to the stockholders which the stockholders do not have with respect to the corporation.

"In addition, although there are a few indications that some things may change in the future, nonetheless, for the most part, neither employees nor stockholders can be held liable, in civil or criminal court, for any legal transgressions that may occur in the name of the corporation. Consequently, once again, the distinction between a corporation and both employees and stockholders is quite clear.

"The corporation as 'person' has many rights which both equal and, in many cases, exceed the rights of a living, biological person. Yet, corporations are, with all due respect to the plant kingdom, complete vegetables as far as their qualities of personhood are concerned.

"Unless a corporation is given intensive care, 24 hours a day, a corporation cannot think, feel, speak, make decisions, or act for itself. All of these things must be done for the corporation by hired nurses and care-takers.

"A corporation does not have a personal sense of identity. Moreover, it does not have any awareness of what goes on within it or around it.

"A corporation has no intelligence, nor does it have the ability to distinguish between right and wrong. A corporation has no capacity for remorse concerning the wrongs that are done, without resistance, through it.

"Corporations are a legal fiction which arbitrarily have been given the ontological status in law of a living person. Corporations have been given this status despite a profound and pervasive inability to satisfy any of the conditions that often are associated with the requirements of personhood.

"Even independently of considerations relating to what role the soul plays in establishing personhood, both the embryo and fetus, as biological entities, have much more of a valid claim to being accorded a status of personhood than does a corporation. Although, to be sure, an embryo or fetus is extremely dependent, in many different ways, on the mother, nevertheless, from day one, even the embryo is capable, with the nutrients provided by the mother, of accomplishing a variety of organized, biological tasks involving, for example, mitosis, as well as the use and/or production of fundamental biochemical components such as proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, energy and so on. A corporation, on its own, can do nothing at all.

"In addition, there is considerable evidence for the existence of different kinds of awareness in both the embryo and the fetus. This awareness may be rudimentary or instinctual in character, but it is a veritable treasure house compared to the emptiness and darkness of a corporation's `awareness' considered in and of itself."

Just as I finished, we turned on to Jennifer's street. In a few minutes we were at her house.

While parked in the driveway, a certain awkwardness descended upon me. I really wasn't sure how to bring things to a conclusion.

Jennifer helped me out by saying: "I've had a very nice time David. I hope we can do something together, again, very soon."

"Is Tuesday night too soon?" I asked.

"I would have felt rejected," she indicated, "if you hadn't suggested it.

She unfastened her seat-belt, opened the door, and paused before getting out. She turned to me and gave me a brief, but heart-melting smile that was shared by her eyes.

"See you on Tuesday night," she confirmed.

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