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"Frank! Is that you?"

The figure on the sidewalk turned. "Theophilus! I haven't seen you since fleas had dogs. Are you still teaching?"

"Still at it. Are you still in med school?"

"Yep."

"This would be your second year, wouldn't it? Doing well?"

"Yep."

"Liking it?"

He grinned in the ironic way I remembered from his undergrad days. "Well, I love studying medicine."

So there was a part he didn't like.

Reading my mind, he laughed and glanced at his watch, adding "Tell you what. Let me treat you to an espresso, and I'll tell you about it."

We ducked into a hole-in-the-wall. As soon as the cups were ready we resumed the thread of conversation.

"First year was good -- lots of basic science -- cell and molecular biology, gross and microscopic anatomy, various organ systems."

"Sounds right up your alley."

"Second year, much the same, more advanced and with greater emphasis on physical diagnosis. That's good too, but there are a couple of instructors --"

He leaned forward and started over. "See, I know how to deal with cultural craziness when I meet it among my fellow students. There's the pro-abortion agenda, but there's no medical justification for regarding the fetus as anything other than a developing human being. There's the safe-sex agenda, but there's no medical justification for regarding promiscuity as healthy or life-promoting. There's the gay agenda, but there's no medical justification for regarding the normal and morbid forms of intercourse as equivalent. And then there's what some people call 'death with dignity,' but there's no medical justification for regarding it as anything but killing. You catch my drift?"

"Sure. You're telling me that although these causes are popular with some classmates, they don't grow out of the medical vocation."

"That's right. They inflict themselves on it. And I'm learning to make that argument."

"I thought you were about to say something about your instructors."

He leaned back again and blew out his breath. "That's more difficult. Most of the ones who teach basic science are okay. Well, not Crawford. But Crawford's an exception. He gets onto these jags about issues like fetal stem-cell research --"

"For it, I suppose?"

"Oh, for -- always for. I never interrupt. He's so extreme that he does his own cause damage. After five minutes or so he talks himself to a standstill. Then I ask something like 'But wouldn't the collection of fetal stem-cells require killing some humans for the sake of others?' or 'Haven't some scientists argued that adult stem-cells would serve research purposes just as well?' He harrumphs, says 'Well, yes,' then returns to the subject -- genetics -- of which he's actually a fine teacher."

"Does he really let go of the bone so easily?"

"Yes, but there are two others. There's Wisp. I had her First Year. And there's Finch. I'm taking his Medical Ethics right now."

"What was the problem with Wisp?"

"Wisp I survived. Her subject is community medicine. Apparently that can mean two different things. I thought she'd teach principles of clinical practice, adapted to a community setting. What she actually teaches is like political indoctrination. Her big theme was that the health problems of the poor and disadvantaged are the sole result of impersonal social conditions that patients can do nothing about."

"I'm not sure I follow you."

"Well, she just took for granted that the reason African-Americans suffer disproportionately high rates of hypertension -- high blood pressure -- is stress induced by racism. There are two problems here. One is that we don't know if that's true. The other is she viewed actually treating black patients with hypertension as a waste of time. Doctors should be political activists instead."

"So how did you survive?"

"You always taught me to take the high road, not the easy one. So I took her on. I wrote an evaluation of the medical literature on the subject of hypertension among blacks."

I considered Frank across the curtain of steam. "What did you find out?"

"There is no reliable evidence to support the hypothesis."

"None?"

"I also found out that other medical authorities have reached the same conclusion."

"I take it that she gave you an acceptable grade."

"She did -- though in her written comments, she all but called me a racist. All things considered, that's rather amusing, don't you think?"

He smiled. I should have explained that Frank is as dark as the espresso we were drinking.

"Didn't you say that you were having difficulty with a Second Year instructor too? Winch or something."

"Finch," he sighed. "I confess I'm at a loss in dealing with him. He's a lot like Crawford, except that he doesn't let go of the bone. Bioethics is his field. Where Crawford gives up, Finch is just getting started."

"What bone is it that he won't let go of?"

"An argument he makes about 'personhood.' Deadly. Take abortion. He concedes that an unborn baby is a human being, but he says that doesn't matter. He isn't yet a person, Finch claims, so he doesn't have personal rights."

"And so --"

"So you can rub him out." Frank snapped his fingers. "Like that."

We were silent for a moment.

"You know," he said, "I could deal with dissecting cadavers. At least I could respect them as the remains of human beings. But this notion of humans who aren't persons -- it's too much. The problem is that I know it smells bad, but I can't tell where it's rotten."

I sighed. "Right at the heart. I can guess how your instructor defines 'personhood.' He says 'A person is a being who exercises the following functions or capacities' --"

"-- and then he supplies a list."

"And I suppose this list includes capacities like consciousness, self-awareness, and communicating complex messages?"

"Right. Also rational deliberation, making moral choices, and -- um -- carrying choices into execution. If you lack any of these capacities, he says you aren't a person. Of course unborn babies don't have all of them yet. He says that's why you can rub them out."

"Push him. Unborn babies aren't the only humans who lack some of those capacities."

"I pointed that out -- born babies don't have them either. He just said 'Then we must reconsider the ethics of infanticide as well.'"

"Callous, eh? Then you have to push harder still. Who else besides born and unborn babies lacks some of those capacities?"

"People with Alzheimer's Syndrome."

"Who else?"

"People with other mental disabilities."

"Who else?"

"People with physical disabilities?"

"Of course, because they can't carry their choices into execution. Who else?"

"Um -- teenagers, because they don't deliberate rationally. Deaf-mutes who haven't been taught to sign, because they can't communicate rich messages. Sleeping people, because they don't have consciousness or self-awareness. Lots more."

"Now you're cooking. It's beginning to look like hardly anyone is a person by your instructor's criteria. Keep on like this, and eventually even he might balk at the implications of his theory."

"And what if he doesn't?"

"If he's that callous, then you take the argument home to him."

"What do you mean?"

"You make it personal. All of the capacities on his list are matters of degree. Don't you notice how that makes personhood itself a matter of degree? For example, he says one of his criteria for personhood is the capacity to communicate. That makes him feel safe because he considers himself a good communicator. But surely some people communicate even better than he does."

"I see where that leads. If they more fully satisfy that criterion of personhood than he does, then they are more fully persons than he is. And if they are more fully persons than he is, then they have greater personal rights."

"So if he gets in their way --"

"Then by his principles they can rub him out. Because their big strong rights would trump his little puny ones."

"Exactly."

"But Prof, what if he doesn't balk even then?"

"Then he doesn't. It's okay; you've said enough."

"But then I've failed."

"Do you mean you won't survive the course?"

"Well, no."

"Then do you mean that somehow you will have failed as a witness?"

"Maybe that."

"Don't think that. You will have succeeded in exposing the dark underside of the claim that we are persons because of our capacities -- because of what we can do. Perhaps in some people present you will have reawakened the intuition that we are persons because of our humanity -- because of what we are."

It was time to leave. We stood and clasped hands.

"Where do you go now, Professor?"

"To class. And you?"

"Also to class."

I looked at Frank inquiringly.

He nodded.

If you have questions you’d like to Ask Theo, send us an email and we'll pass it along to him.