Defining what makes up humanity--and therefore, defining what is not human--by a person's ability to sustain himself is certainly not new; however, I am not sure that a lot of people inspect this idea closely, even if they believe it themselves.
In the first place, the definition of self-sustenance must be established. It certainly cannot mean that, by oneself, one produces everything necessary for survival. Every human needs food and water to survive, and even though we can use our strength and intelligence to extract it from our surroundings, we still need those surroundings. So perhaps the meaning of self-sustenance must be that one has the strength and intelligence to extract necessary materials from his surroundings.
But extracting those materials is easier in some places and harder in others. For example, Orlando, Florida, is a very easy place to obtain food and water; the middle of the Sahara desert is not. For a fetus, the womb is a very easy place to obtain food and water. If we accept our new definition of self-sustenance, then the same people will lose or gain humanity in different places, depending on their surroundings, strength, and intelligence. Unless we allow that viable humanity can change for the same person from place to place, this also seems to come up short.
In order to live, humans need a certain amount of food and water, a certain amount of pressure, a certain amount of radiation, and a certain temperature. There are far too many factors not under any individual's control to say that self-sustenance is a real determiner of humanity--unless we also believe that viable humanity depends on one's surroundings.
If anyone has anything to share--if they disagree with my analysis, or my reasoning is faulty, or there is some insight that could shed light on the issue--please leave a comment!
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