Can I get a few more fresh sets of eyes on this question? I've been given a few explanations about why it's "unclear" but each strikes me as either pedantry or willful misunderstanding. I hope I'm wrong, and that someone can help me understand how to make it clearer.

@Mr.Bultitude I hadn't seen all the developments on that. Maybe refine the terms a bit; you're talking about "life" and "person"(hood) but those aren't the same, plus there are times when killing a person is not only permitted but required, and then you bring ensoulment into it. Do you mean to ask: when does the fetus get the same protections as any already-born person? And maybe you're also asking when does the soul enter it? Does this help?

@MonicaCellio I actually don't ask all the things you suggest I ask about. I'm talking about "personhood," and I only speak of "life" with a qualification (that I'm talking about it in a "personal" sense). I don't ask about killing at all, though I quote a post that refers to it.

"Protections" aren't really the focus of the question. The post I quoted seems to be saying that abortion is sinful, but not murder, not murder because it's not killing, not killing because it's not a person. So the fetus is "protected," but I want to know when it's considered a "person."

I suppose I assumed that the moment a soul enters the fetus (or born child, or whatever) is when it becomes a person -- but it seems to makes sense since a person is a composite of body and soul.

I see (I think): you're asking when a fetus becomes a person according to Judaism? Maybe strip it down to just that? The problem some might be having is that personhood and protection from killing aren't exactly the same thing. So even if we were to say that the fetus is a "person" in utero (it's not), that wouldn't automatically mean abortion is murder -- there are times when you can and must kill, and that killing is not murder. So if you're not asking about that part, maybe leave it out?

For context, we also have laws about appropriate treatment of animals, which clearly are not people. Yet we cannot gratuitiously cause them harm, but sometimes we kill them (for meat).

@MonicaCellio I'm not even sure what you're suggesting I leave out. Where do I ask about anything other than what you just said? I didn't ask about protection from killing.

@Mr.Bultitude sorry, I must have misunderstood. Let me try again. Is your question: "When does a fetus become a person? Is it the same time that its soul enters?"?

@MonicaCellio I guess my question would be: "1) When does a fetus become a person? 2) When does a soul enter a person?" (though I assumed the two questions would be equivalent)

I avoided using the word fetus before, partly because it sounded like a fetus is never a person, and that a child only becomes a person at birth. Maybe that was part of the reason for the lack of clarity?

@Mr.Bultitude I think asking it that way would be clear, including the part about your assumption. If that assumption is wrong somebody will correct you.

@MonicaCellio Thank you for your help.

I wasn't one of the commenters nor the closer, so I'm speaking for myself but can't guess at what others found unclear. I think that formation would be pretty clear, though.

@Mr.Bultitude you're welcome!

@MonicaCellio You're genuinely one of the best mods I've interacted with on SE. I wish there was some kind of mod award system. People like you deserve recognition for your contributions to the community.

@WadCheber aw, thanks!

@MonicaCellio Do you agree that this is a weakness in the question?

> What does it mean to "become a person"? – Double AA♦ 20 mins ago

@Mr.Bultitude I think that what may be going on is that you are looking for a transcendent philosophical principle that legal rules are generated from, while mostly, what we've got in Judaism are legal rules, which we sometimes derive philosophical principles from.

(I'm not 100% confident about the second part of that sentence and would welcome correction from someone better-versed in the relevant meta-philosophic principles.)

@IsaacMoses You've got quite the Halakhic Mind there, it seems.

@DoubleAA I really need to read that and the other one one of these days.

Seriously, I'm no philosopher. Please correct me if what I said is indeed controversial.

@IsaacMoses That's good! But I just found youtu.be/pgkz6wbCcFo. It's more, um, uplifting. :-)

@Mr.Bultitude I agree that it is a weakness in the question. I think @IsaacMoses is exactly right. We have halacha. Sometimes we derive philosophical principles from halacha. But when "personhood" begins doesn't really seem to be a particularly important piece of information once we already know the halacha (if it even means anything at all), so it wouldn't really surprise me if it's not discussed anywhere.

@Scimonster Find a post that you downvoted that has been improved since then and undownvote it!

@Scimonster or accept an answer on one of your questions

@Mr.Bultitude I think the above is the weakness of the question. I'm not sure that is fully fair to your question, because it assumes a lot of background in Judaism that isn't required of questions. But to say something is a "person" or has "personhood" has consequential meaning. It is those consequences that Judaism focuses on.

And the answer is that not all consequences are applied at the same time, thus making the question unclear when you know more about Judaism's views on the issue.

@Yishai I actually think that could be a good answer to the question

@Daniel well, unless he's trying to hit 10k exactly. :-)

@MonicaCellio Yeah, then only the undownvote suggestion works

@Daniel @Yishai I agree. I think this is an honest question arising from the dominant culture that the OP has no way of knowing we treat very differently. I think having the question, and an answer explaining that's not how Judaism approaches things, is valuable. We shouldn't require enough expertise to answer a question in order to ask it. I'd like to reopen, but it'd be nice to have a community vote or two first. CC @IsaacMoses @DoubleAA @Mr.Bultitude

@MonicaCellio If he's using a term he should be willing and able to define it. That's certainly the asker's responsibility. On-hold is something we with more background can use to help him when he doesn't realize certain terms need more refinement. (If he can't refine it, then he probably doesn't understand well enough what he's asking.)

@DoubleAA I don't know. It seems that the OP didn't realize that there isn't one specific time when a fetus becomes a person

so from that perspective, it's perfectly reasonable to ask when that time is

@Daniel How do you know there isn't one such specific time? I can't answer the question till I understand the terms in it.

@DoubleAA I understand your difficulty with the question

and I share the same difficulty

But I think @IsaacMoses got it right in his comment on the question

It's not really clear what he's asking bc he's using a pretty loosely defined term. Hence the closure reason: Unclear What You Are Asking.

I think he's asking the latter

@Daniel Perhaps? Why not let the OP just edit to tell us what he's asking? Pretty simple suggestion.

@DoubleAA Well he basically did in chat above

and he's been away from the site all day

There's no reason we should have an argument about what he's trying to ask. Let's just ask him. That's what On-Hold-Unclear is for.

@Daniel There is no rush around here. If he's not back in a month...

@DoubleAA Sure. I think he basically explained what he was asking above in chat. One of us could edit the question

although I don't think it's that unclear from the question

he never mentions abortion in the question

I don't see any reason to think he's asking anything else

It would be better if he used some technical Hebrew term for "personhood"

@Daniel Any term, in fact, in any language, with a clearly defined meaning would be better.

but I don't think it's our practice to require questioners to be familiar with technical Hebrew terms

@DoubleAA Your point is that he's basically asking us to define what the English word "personhood" means according to Judaism?

And that's not a Judaism-related question

No he's asking when Judaism assumes something gets a certain status without defining what that status is. What if I asked at what age a girl becomes a פלשנתא? It's unclear, because that's not a word with a clear definition.

He can edit in any definition of the word "person" he wants, as long as he's clear what it is. Is a "person" something that can be killed? Something to which the Hebrew word אדם could apply? Something with free choice? Something born of another person? Something that could survive on its own? I don't care. It's not a clear word on its own, hence the closure.

@DoubleAA Is that a made-up word?

@Daniel Does it matter? :-)

@DoubleAA no, but I was unfamiliar with it, so I googled it and the only thing that came up was a bunch of Hebrew-character nonsense

So either you specifically Googled for Hebrew-character nonsense and copied a random word from there, or you coincidentally invented a random-character Hebrew string that also exists in a page of Hebrew-character nonsense, or it's a real word that is unfamiliar to me and most of the internet

@DoubleAA What if he's asking what a "person" is according to Judaism?

@Daniel Is that asking what associations Judaism has with the six character English string "person" (an absolutely terrible question as is, though perhaps on-topic?) or is he assuming some meaning to the word 'person' and if so, what? I'm not really sure where that leaves us anyway as certainly whatever meaning the word has, Judaism thinks that's the meaning of the word, no?

@Daniel Made it up on the spot. Good, no?

Looking to write an article about my first visit to the Ir haAtiqah. Anyone interested in reading it?

@NoachmiFrankfurt sure!

@DoubleAA It is indeed a bad question.

I'm not really sure how the question as it currently is can be edited to be made better, though

@DoubleAA So it was option #2. Barukh Shekivanta with the random Hebrew generator

(FTR the part 2 about when a soul enters a person is perfectly intelligible IMO and is fine for reopening, though perhaps it should be in a separate post from part 1.)

On an unrelated note, is there a Mi Yodeya blog anymore?

(slash was there a Mi Yodeya blog ever? I seem to remember there being one)

@Daniel @IsaacMoses had a blog in the 1.0 days, before Mi Yodeya moved fully onto the SE network. SE isn't creating blogs for sites any more, but this just came up on another of my sites, so if somebody wants to start a blog I can point you at some stuff.

(I don't know if we have interest and critical mass. I'm not advocating one way or the other.)

@MonicaCellio I was just curious

@MonicaCellio Strange that I would "remember" that, then. I wasn't around in the 1.0 days

@Daniel neither was I, but I've seen it. It's probably come up in meta conversations, or perhaps in this room, over the years.

@MonicaCellio @Daniel it was short-lived: yodeya.blogspot.com

@DoubleAA I haven't seen a convincing and comprehensive definition of personhood, even from the people who use the term most often. I don't think anyone can really define it, if a definition is even possible.