Really, you need to try harder. I’m not saying there’s no possible difference between a brain-dead patient and a temporary flat-liner (“Look, that one has brown hair! How can you say they’re the same?”). I’m saying, now for the umpteenth time, that there is no difference between then, at that given moment, in their mental capacities. Is this really so difficult to grasp?
You’re not too good at this, are you? The definition of legal death has no bearing at all on what I am arguing. Thanks for the red herring and the awesome sigh.
In my opinion? Someone permanently brain dead is, well, dead.
I wasn’t, actually. If you refer the post you quoted, I was pointing out that DNA and existence alone do not make something a human being. Inasmuch as that is virtually self-evident, I assumed from your renewed question that you were now asking about personhood. My mistake.
The problem with such a analogy is that these computers are self manufacturing and continue to build and learn and self repair till death, and this fetus has started itself already, and maybe can only run DOS 1.0 instead of Windows Vista, but it is up and running.
This is a meaningless semantical distinction, one that seems to have no purpose other than to allow abortions while assigning (rightly) rights to the temporary flat-liner. If the previously existing capability is important, then the permanent flat-liner has the same rights. If the future consciousness is what is important, then the temporary flat-liner and the early development fetus are equivalent: both lack mental capacity, both will gain consciousness through some physical change.
No, they’re not retrievable, for any number of reasons. The structure is identical, at least in some cases, any reasonable person would have to admit. Here’s an example you might find easier. A person has their heart removed by some evil scientist on a whim. Can we agree that this person would register a flat line? What about this dead guy’s brain would be different from the temporary flat-liner, as it realtes to “structure”? But he’d be dead, right, without any rights, eh?
You understand that DNA, and all its effects, are physical, right? They are physical attributes of the fetus and the flat-liner both.
Why? I’ll have to ask again. I would have assumed before that you would have said something along the lines of, “they lack of any mental capacity,” but since you don’t have that requirement for the temporary flat-liner, I need you to explain.
But this is an arbitrary, personal assessment. There is no distinction with regard to their mental capacity. Who are you to say to someone else who believes differently that he can’t kill the temporary flat-liner to harvest his organs? In his opinion (the harvester, not the flat-liner), this is a blob of tissue lacking the ability to object to anything at the moment. Why does your semantical tap dance win?
I’m beginning to think this is willful ignorance. There is NO DIFFERENCE as it relates to their current mental capacities.
Now then, let’s you and I be friends. As I pointed out, we’re really in agreement. Why this pointless bickering?
No, it would not be OK, IMO. Since you asked. Like my buddy Der Trihs, I do not require him to have mental capacity currently, only the capacity to gain consciousness.
I have a raw egg. I have a boiled egg. There is no difference in their present shape. I crack them.
Suddenly there is a difference.
Harping on “present brain function” is silly, when the* capacity* for brain function is at issue. And that capacity is not “at present” identical for a fetus & a flatliner. It takes a lot more for even a 10-week-old fetus, who demonstrably has electrical activity in the brain, to fully develop; than for someone flatlined from hypothermia or cardiac arrest to return to previous capacity.
I really don’t have that much at stake in the whole “are they conscious” argument. Pigs are conscious, & we eat them. (Not usually while they’re conscious, admittedly.)
If there is a meaningful difference between the born & the unborn, in my estimation it is the obligate status of the fetus. It’s very difficult to enforce the rights of a fetus against the mother out of whose body he cannot survive. Personally, I think there are more important things our state governments could be doing than harassing women of childbearing age, doctors, & hospitals about the rights of an individual who, if the mother doesn’t want him, is probably screwed anyway; & the courts, police, & law enforcement tend, in fact, to agree. Hence the Roe v. Wade decision.
As for the OP: As a “tactic” I see both a pro-life & a pro-choice appeal to this proposed law. If we start recording who’s actually had abortions, a lot of ostensible “pro-lifers” would find themselves embarrassingly on it. However, the advantage goes to the pro-life side, as I think this would perhaps simply force many “pro-life” types to either try to have secret abortions (perhaps out of state) or live up to the strength of their convictions. In any case, I think it’s merely hypothetical, as there is a strong impetus to keep abortions secret, & that would presumably continue with abortions performed after the law went into force (not to mention that this has no effect on abortions performed previously).
For the last time to you, they are identical in regard to the ability of either entity to think or remember or dream or exercise any mental activity. Why is this so tough for you to understand? That was a specific attribute that Der Trihs introduced to the thread, and I responded to it. The capacity of early development fetuses, the permanently brain dead, and/or temporary flat-liners to exercise such mental activities is identical to a leaf blower as well. Or to a prune danish. Or to a Faberge egg. To state this is not to argue that certain people are the same in any other regard to a Faberge egg.
“A lot more” for a fetus, eh? So the issue isn’t that both entities will develop brain activity–both will–now there’s a threshold that determines degree of difficulty. The Russian judges have deemed that the fetus doesn’t get any rights as a result. Or is it you that decides? Let me know.
Certainly it would, assuming two things; that it’s true, of course, and also that it’s in comparison to their help supporting anti-abortion positions. If for example I said I don’t have enough to donate to children in Thailand, and really it’s true, yet I scrimp and save in order to donate to kids over here, that might seem a bit off. I guess really it boils down to whether I can afford to take support out of one in order to aid the other, and whether that’ll help. If I can easily afford to donate as much to kids elsewhere as I do here, and I don’t, certainly you could question my devotion to the cause. If by donating to other places I would have to decrease my support for kids here, to the extent that i’d be paying more for a lesser help, then it would be reasonable for me to focus on just that one area.
Just to bring it back to abortion; if I were a pro-lifer who devotes time and money to anti-abortion causes can afford to support research and legislation into spontaneous abortion, and I don’t, I think it would be fair to question my concept that “the lives of fetuses matter as does any other human life”, assuming that’s my reasoning.
While i’m here, to add my two cents to the braindead person vs. fetus debate, I wouldn’t consider a person (for lack of a better word) with no brain activity to be either a human or a person.
I would categorize it differently. The pro-lifer (from your perspective) may be a hypocrite or inconsistent. That doesn’t mean his contention regarding the value of the life of a fetus is wrong (or right, for that matter). That’s what I’m responding to, mainly–the notion that if someone isn’t absolutely consistent in every action, then he doesn’t believe what he says he does. This is a failing we could apply to everyone, for every belief, I think. I can do absolutely nothing for a given cause, or pick and choose what “faction” I fancy enough to support, and that doesn’t invalidate for a moment the argument I advance. That’s all. Every so often a thread suggesting “real” pro-lifers would be bombing abortion clinics, or conducting analysis on tampons (I’m not kidding; that was suggested on this board), and I can’t help but respond that this is ridiculous. The notion argued in this thread is only slightly less so, IMO.
No; the brain functions of a fetus are more analogous to those of the machine that built the computer that will eventually run DOS. They are not those of a person; they are part of what manufactures a person.
No, because the permanent flat liner’s brain is broken; it no longer has those capacities.
No, the fetus lacks those capacities, while the flat liner’s are simply shut down; it’s not even close to the same thing. Is there no difference between building a car and just turning one on ?
No, and I don’t understand your point. The heart is replacable, and has nothing to do with identity or personhood; the brain is the center of both. And there are important physical differences between the brain of someone who is flatlined for a while, and someone who is permanently flatlined ( brain dead ). Otherwise, it wouldn’t be permanent.
The DNA is physical; that doesn’t make it a human. It’s the data on the DNA that matters, and that’s not even close to a representation of a person.
Once again, the flatliner has the mental capacity; it’s just shot off for the moment. The fetus has no such capacity.
There’s plenty of distinction, as I’ve pointed out over and over.
Because it’s true ? Because if the harvester is right you would lose most or all rights the moment you fall asleep ? A sleeping person isn’t a flatliner, but they are nowhere near waking mental capacity.
Yes, there is, as I’ve pointed out again and again; just because they are shut off doesn’t make them go away.
Because I am not and never would be friends with anyone who is anti abortion, nor am I in agreement with you. Nor do I consider this pointless bickering; it’s an important subject.
That’s fair enough, I agree. That a pro-lifer may not entirely follow through on their belief doesn’t have any bearing on whether or not the belief is correct. And I don’t think that any hypocrisy or something similar indicates that they don’t actually hold that belief. I just think, as in pretty much all philosophical positions, there’s a difference between what we think is right and what we are prepared to do, and what we think on an intellectual level and what we think on an emotional level. We can fail in our own moral codes. I know I do.
Neither does the temporary flat-liner, at the moment.
Yes, there is. Thankfully, the fetus is already “built,” inexorably progressing toward consciousness, just like our hypothermic pal.
OK, you’re not giving it the old college try here. Focus on the brain itself. The guy without the heart is now dead. How is his brain’s “structure” different from the temporary flat-liner.
The structure of a flat-lined brain is physical, lacking any manifestation of thought. It’s not even close to a representation of a person.
You can repeat this ad infinitum, and it won’t change the self-evident fact that the flat-liner (at a given moment, just like the fetus) does NOT have any mental capacity whatsoever. Sorry, dude. It’s by definition.
Now you’ve moved the goal posts. “Nowhere near”? Falling asleep in not the same as the distinction you drew for fetuses, who in early development have ZERO mental capacities, an important point for you (but apparently only in some instances). This is really weak, even for you. Equating “falling asleep” with “someone with zero capacity for mental activity.” Really now.
Now you’ve hurt my feelings. I really wanted us to be pals.
Not inexorably. The fetus cannot survive outside a specific environment: the mother’s body.
WE DON’T CARE. Without a heart, he’s dead in short order. The unsalvageability of his life is what’s relevant, not his present brain function. That’s your specific hang-up, Strat.
Huh. I seem to recall starting this particular hijack back in post #102. So I feel that by harping on brain activity, you’re missing my point.
My point was that a person’s idea of the value of human life often corresponds to his sense of life as he experiences it, & our received social standards largely derive from that sense; but then well-meaning individuals try to apply a standard derived from the life of a healthy, functional person to anything that can be biologically defined as human.
So we get right-to-life people insisting on maintaining persons in persistent vegetative states; which horrifies other people who are operating from a sense of what life, as experienced, is “supposed to be.” We get the same right-to-life people insisting that a fetus has the same essential rights as an infant, simply by virtue of being a human organism; while others define what a “person” is by a definition that relies less on subcellular biology & more on more grossly visible attributes like being able to exist outside the mother.
We now have two subcultures that, due in large part to these differing definitions, each regard the other as perverse. This country has spent a lot of time arguing about a) which is right, & b) how much allowance we make for differences of opinion. I think it’s important to understand where the other side is coming from, because on arguments of fact, each is partially right, whereas in arguments of morality, none of us is wholly right.
Further, it’s important to deal with reality as it actually is, not just as we think it is. The truth is more complex than our understanding, let alone our ideology.
