The question isn’t whether a fetus is human, but whether it’s a person.

During Super Bowl L, NARAL Pro-Choice America tweeted:

#NotBuyingIt — that @Doritos ad using #antichoice tactic of humanizing fetuses & sexist tropes of dads as clueless & moms as uptight. #SB50

Let’s stipulate upfront that the Doritos ad is both super creepy and overly reliant on sexual stereotypes. In addition, the joke falls flat. Of course, the company doesn’t care. It’s loving the attention.

All of that is a sideshow, however, to the philosophical blunder NARAL made. The issue has never been whether a fetus is human, but whether it is a person. A fetus is a collection of cells with DNA from its parents. If the parents are human, the cells have human DNA so the fetus is human. But not all human cells are people. A bloodstain might be human or pig or dog or any other warm-blooded species, but it sure isn’t a person.

Most parents, even those munching chips, see the ultrasound image of their unborn offspring in utero as a little person. If the Doritos fetus has gestated 26 or more weeks, it has 90%+ survival odds with modern medical technology. It’s DNA is absolutely individual; no other human will share its code. If it’s in the United States, it will be protected as a person under the Fourteenth Amendment as soon as it leaves the womb. You can’t humanize an individual who is already fully human.

Of course the problem is that with only 140 characters, it’s not possible to completely explain the paradox that the Pro-Choice position represents. What’s troubling about the ad is not that the fetus is humanized, but that it behaves like a person. (The images are disturbing even if you believe the fetus is a person, by the way.) That’s the crux of the nugget of humor. The word that best fits the idea of taking something that is not a person and making them appear like a person is “humanize”.

Normally it’s a positive thing to humanize someone. But it isn’t if you believe that someone is not a person. In the past, society has declared classes of individuals as nonpersons and for the most part we find that designation evil. But according the U. S. Supreme Court, when the human happens located inside their mother, a fetus might be a nonperson.