Should Human Value Be Based on Appearance?

David Vellman has offered an interesting defense of abortion rights in his post here (and previous ones on Roe V Wade).  I can certainly agree with Pseudopolymath's response here (with an excellent synopsis of the argument), but I wish to dive in a bit deeper.

I understand that Mr. Vellmen has a bit of a dilemma.  The philosophical grounding of Roe V Wade is in some peril, and the in-your-face assertion of abortion on demand by abortion choice groups seems to be wearing thin on the American populace, as seen in the last election.  He envisions safe guarding abortion rights by a form of compromise not unlike Pastor Boyd's.  If we can agree, like most European countries do, that abortion on demand remain legal during the first trimester, then we could outlaw abortions that most Americans are uncomfortable with - namely from the second trimester on.  The problem is simply this: how does one philosophically ground such a distinction between early and late term abortions.  In other words, if a human fetus has the moral standing of a wisdom tooth in the first trimester, how can we justify not allowing a woman who seeks her "right to choose" in later trimesters? 

This is especially an especially daunting task because Vellman has already asserted that a human being lacks a right to life until after it obtains the accidental property of "personhood".  I would argue that the way he defines personhood seems to place that magical moment sometime after the birth of a human being, so this cannot be the basis to restrict abortion after the first trimester.  If it is not based on the human being's right not to be dismembered, what basis does Vellman use to restrict abortion?

Interestingly, he uses the appearance, or how close the fetus looks like a "real baby" after birth:

Abortion can be far more vicious than selling organs or desecrating a corpse, since it involves killing.  The ability to kill what looks just like a human baby is an ability that we cannot morally afford to have.  Such killing can therefore be unethical, in my view, whether or not it kills a person endowed with a right to life.   

I think that there is something right in the claim that we should presume a fetus to be a person long before we have scientific reason to credit it with the requisite capacities.  Until synaptic connections from the spine to the thalamus and cerebral cortex are formed, during the latter half of the second trimester, the fetus is not equipped for conscious sensation.  Electroencephalographic activity doesn't appear until the 20th week of gestation, around the time when neurons finish migrating to the cerebral cortex; and the fetus's EEG doesn't coalesce into "waves" until in week 26, or develop the patterns characteristic of waking and sleeping until week 30.³  Yet a mid-second-trimester fetus is already enough like a human infant to engage that emotional sensibility of ours which responds to the human form as embodying a person.  Scientific evidence does not alter our emotional response to a being so like a baby.  These emotions make the crucial presumption for us, in effect, and we override them at our moral peril. (emphasis mine)

It is the appearance of the fetus, and the subsequent "emotional sensibilities" that would allow us to restrict abortion in his view.

If the unborn has no moral standing, then it seems inadequate to restrict it's dismemberment on the basis of what it reminds us of.  In other words, the entity in question is either a valuable human being or it is not.  If it is not, it seems that restricting its intentional death on the basis of what it looks like is inadequate.  Using pro-abortion choice language, why should we force a woman to remain pregnant with a human non-person because it happens to physically resemble human persons that we know and value? 

Even more fundamentally, why should our value be based on the emotional response another human being has to our existence,  especially when that emotional appeal is tied to our appearance?  I realize that Vellman argues that this distinction is important only before a human being develops "personhood", but we are still placed in a situation where we value certain human beings on solely their appearance.  This, by itself, should give us pause.

Furthermore, ironically (for someone on the left), Vellman's views endorses discrimination at two separate levels.  First, there is discrimination between human beings that have obtained "personhood", and those who have not.  On top of that, he posits an additional level of discrimination, whereby those human non-persons that don't look like human persons may be killed, while human non-persons that happen to bear some resemblance to human persons are legally protected.  On each of these levels, one set (or subset) of human beings are able to devalue and kill another based on differences between the two.  In other words, if there is a human being that is different than I in either developmental stage or appearance, I am free to devalue and kill them. 

On the other hand, the pro-life view is open and inclusive to all human beings.  It is wrong to discriminate based on appearance.  I've treated patients with horrific gun shot wound, disfiguring cancer surgery, and facial anomalies.  Their value as human beings did not diminish because they looked different from I did.  Take a look at this story and this video regarding a little girl with Treacher's-Collins syndrome (the worse case I've ever seen).  Should we value her on the basis of how she looks, or is she intrinsically valuable regardless of how she looks?  Is this value based on the positive feelings her parents get from her? Or would she be valuable even if her parents did not have such great emotions towards her? 

We have tried to devalue human beings based on their appearance in the past, and we should learn from those results. It is wrong to devalue another human being because they look different than we do.  This should be a lesson that we should have already learned.