Yes, it does.
Here, Stratocaster, let me help you out a bit. This might help you understand the definition of brain death.
Does that clear a few things up?
Now, I grand you, it’s an Australian cite, but I’d be happy to come up with a few more, if you happen to think they’re lying.
Stratocaster, if you’re saying that an embryo (as a collection of cells) and a brain dead patient are similar in that neither think, i’d be right with you there.
If you’re saying that they’re similar because each don’t have chemical/electrical activity in the brain, you’d be wrong - an embryo at the stage you’re talking about doesn’t have any or enough brain material for there to be activity in. The brain dead patient has the equipment, but no activity.
Perhaps Stratocaster is confusing brain dead with brain damage. It’s possible to recover from the latter-I went to high school and later college with a guy who had sustained brain damage in a car accident.
Yeah, it’s quite possible to have recovery from brain damage - often you never recover completely, but it’s possible to have very severe brain damage and recover pretty well - everyone’s heard the stories about people getting nail-gunned in the head or being impaled there, and yet acting normally (though a good many are urban legends, it does happen).
And if you’re a kid, the chances of recovery are pretty good (relatively). The brain seems to be expert at rewiring itself, especially at that age, automatically.
Well, in this case, the guy was fine academically, but really not socially. He was extremely outgoing, very friendly, but also extremely naive and a lot of bullies tended to take advantage of that-it was pretty sad. But other than the fact that he’d talk your ear off if you gave him a chance, he was a nice guy.
But if we’re talking Terri Schiavo territory, absolutely not. Or embryos/fetuses/zygotes, whatever-who don’t even have brains yet.
Eh. Maybe, but why else this paragraph:
But I’m willing to concede that while he keeps using that word, it does not mean what he thinks it means. If that’s the case, then hey, all he has to do is say so. Have the stones to admit you were wrong, dude. It’s no crime.
One, that doesn’t explain why he ignores other people’s questions. Two, I am not a troll and you have no evidence that I am. Three, most people do respond to my “nonsense”. Occam’s Razor in this instance says to me that he is ignoring many questions because he has no answer, and doesn’t want to admit it.
You know, Raindog still hasn’t given his opinion on why he disagrees with what the supreme court decided. Nor has he given any real reason for why he thinks life begins when it does.
God almighty. All right, I’m in a good mood, so I’m going to try to educate you, based on the remote possibility that it is possible for the tiny receptacle you call your skull to contain a complex thought. Let’s try, shall we?
Even though there are credible, technical cites, such as this one that refer to a temporary state of brain inactivity as “brain death,” that convention is by no means universally accepted.
Let’s take this cite. Like the one you provided, and no doubt countless others, it adheres to the semantical convention of assigning the name “brain death” only to irreversible cases. But, again, this is a semantical distinction. As an issue of fact, there is no disagreement that there are patients who flat-line (in this instance, it refers to an EEG, Guinastasia), whether induced deliberately or not, who ultimately recover their brain functions. Call these people “brain dead,” call them “temporarily brain dead,” call them “resembling brain dead,” call them whatever you want. It doesn’t change my point.
The scenario I first described (hypothermia) is one specifically referenced in the second cite as a condition one must rule out before one can conclude irreversible brain death. Certain patients in this condition will resemble an irreversibly brain dead patient, though they will recover their faculties. That was my point. Any of this sinking in?
So, you can continue to make irrelevant snipes regarding the term “brain death” in the interest of scoring a false point, or you can concede that my point was accurate and still stands: There are adult patients who experience the temporary cessation of all brain activity, and in this sense they are identical to a fetus–i.e., both are “blobs of tissue,” incapable of thought at the moment, though they will at some point in the future have that capacity.
Get it? Or are you going to take another irrelevant left turn dancing on a semantical distinction that makes no difference to the point I made. Have the stones to admit you were wrong, sweetheart. It’s no crime.
No, I’m just saying they are both masses of tissue without the current capacity for thought. Nothing more.
Except than the brain structures that define them as people are still there, just shut down. A fetus isn’t shut down; there’s simply nobody home.
Ah, so it’s the “brain structure” that defines them as people, not the capacity for thought, not the existence of a functioning mind. Forgive me, I was thrown by quotes like these:
And especially…
But let’s not forget…
Quit backpedaling, bub. Have the courage of your convictions. It’s, I dunno, unseemly. 
I’ve got no dog in this fight, but I do hate to see bad arguments. Surely you understand the phrase “necessary, but not sufficient, condition”? If not, try googling.
But a brain dead person does have that capacity - it’s just not being used. A foetus has neither the capacity nor the activity. I think you may be having a bit of trouble with terminology, here.
I have been following this thread for a while, and I would like to add my perspective on the debate.
I think that the fundamental question in the abortion debate is the personhood of the foetus. If the foetus is a person, then abortion is the act of killing another human without cause, and is therefore wrong. If the foetus is not a person then abortion is merely a medical procedure which has little more ethical implications than something like an appendectomy, and should not be prohibited.
I think under any reasonable definition of the words it is clear that a foetus is both “human” and “alive”. The question is to whether this human and alive status implies a personhood and therefore whether rights such as the right to life should be granted to the foetus. There are two main ways to assign personhood. The first is to assign them ontologically, that is to say that all things that are human necessarily have personhood. Followed through since the foetus is human from the point of conception, then the foetus has personhood since the point of conception. This is essentially the pro-life position.
The second way of defining personhood is to do it functionally. This method implies that personhood is connected to some property or ability of the being in question, rather than the nature of the being. Using a functional definition personhood can be granted to a foetus (or a child, as the case may be) once they gain the functional characteristics that defines personhood. So for instance “viability” (of which I will say more later) is often presented by the pro-choice side as a functional characteristic that is required for personhood.
Of the two approaches I think that the ontological approach is by far the more logical. The main problem with the functional approach is that there is no clear functional property that can be used to define personhood. The wide range of possible points demonstrates this. Further of those that are put forward there is often nothing unique about them.
So for instance take intellectual ability. Commonly it is seen that all animals have no personhood, and therefore it is fine to kill animals for food, clothing, whatever. However if we wish to use brain function to define personhood then there are many animals that exhibit much higher brain functioning that a third trimester or even newborn baby. If brain functioning is our standard, and we give personhood to newborn babies, then personhood should also be granted to a wide range of animals which exhibit similar brain function. There is nothing unique about the functional ability of a newborn baby in this regard. This is essentially the argument of Peter Singer for animal liberation, that if we are going to define personhood functionally, then we should be consistent.
Personally I think that a lot of the typical pro-choice distinctions of when personhood begin have much more to do with allowing abortion, rather then a sense of intellectual rigour. So for instance take “viability”, which has been bandied about quite a bit (and as I understand it is also the line drawn in Roe vs Wade). As a definition of personhood it has a number of flaws
First and foremost “viability” is not a property of the foetus itself, but is a property of the society around it. What is “viable” in some places and times is not viable in others. 500 years ago viability was somewhere around 36 weeks. With increases in technology we have gotten it to somewhere around 24 weeks. In another 500 years we may have invented mechanical wombs so that a foetus is viable from the point of conception. It is absurd to try and define something fundamental to a person such as personhood through something that is not a property of the person themselves.
To illustrate this there are several absurd situations that may arise. Say for instance the point of viability in the US is 24 weeks, but because of lower levels of medical care the point of viability in Somalia is 30 weeks. So a woman in the US, when she reaches 24 weeks as a “person” inside of her, and cannot ethically get an abortion. What happens then if at 27 weeks she travels to Somalia? Does the foetus stop being a person now that they are effectively unviable? Should the mother be charged with murder since she has destroyed the personhood of the foetus? And can she now get an abortion since the foetus in no longer viable?
“Viability” as a concept is almost meaningless anyway. Babies born premature often require intensive medical care to live. Even babies born full-term require constant care (feeding, nurturing, ect) or they will die. Given this “viability” doesn’t mean “can survive on their own”, viability simply means “able to survive without a specific means of support”. Given the level of care that premature babies need there is no logical reason to exclude the support of a human womb from the list of possible care. Why is a baby that is able to live only in a womb or a humidicrib and more or less a person than a foetus who is only able to live in a womb? In both cases without serious levels of care the child will die.
The objection that until a foetus is “viable” then the care of the foetus comes down to one person, the mother, is commonly raised. The general principle advanced here is that since only one person is capable of caring for the foetus, then it cannot be a person. This is clearly absurd since this seems to be the only situation that this applies in. There are many situations that we place ourselves in where our life is dependant on the actions of an individual. Such situations in no way negate our personhood, and therefore neither should it in this case.
If “viable” is the distinction for personhood, then again there are many animals that are not given personhood that clearly exhibit more viability than even a newborn infant. So for instance while newborns require constant care cockroaches live and breed not just in human indifference, but in human opposition. Clearly their life is more “viable” than a newborns, yet they are not considered to have personhood.
Since then there is no reasonable logically consistent definition of personhood besides that of conception, I would say that personhood begins at this point and therefore abortion is wrong.
Oh yeah, and I think Stratocaster is right in comparing a foetus with a temporarily unconscious person. I would argue that a foetus does inherently have a brain structure since it is encoded in it’s DNA. The comparison is apt in that just like the unconscious person who then recovers consciousness a foetus too will eventually develop consciousness as it grows. While at a particular stage in its life it is without consciousness it will not always be like that. The mechanisms of the two may be different in terms of how they gain consciousness, but the point is that in both cases they are points in a life where consciousness is gained after unconsciousness. Therefore is unconsciousness in the case of an adult does not negate humanity then there is no reason to suggest why it should be the case in a foetus.
Does an irreversibly brain dead person have the capacity? Because he’s identical to the temporarily brain dead patient in this regard.
So, I have to disagree. The brain dead person, at that moment, lacks the capacity for thought. It’s inarguable. If you’re arguing that his physical condition will change and in the future he’ll have the capacity for thought, then you’re correct. But the same could be said for a fetus.
Surely you understand that I am not the one suggesting that it is thought alone that creates the value that distinguishes “human beings” from “blobs of tissue.” I am just responding to that notion.
Obviously, I agree. The fetus at a certain point lacks the current capacity for thought, though he does have the physical properties (i.e., DNA) that will lead to that capacity. Just like the temporarily brain dead patient. The temporarily brain dead patient at a certain point lacks the current capacity for thought, though he does have the physical properties that will lead to that capacity.
But it’s still not clear to me why this particular point matters. Whatever the reason, however they will obtain it in the future, both entities in this comparison are by definition incapable of thought. Period.
But, again, by taking this position, you are overlooking the factst that fertilized eggs fail to implant; miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies happen; and that when women decide to undergo in-vitro fertilization, more eggs are fertilized than are implanted.
Earlier I mentioned a family friend who had to spend the last three months of her pregnancy in bed or have yet another miscarriage. This is a reasonable assumption since all of her prior pregnancies had resulted in miscarriages. If she hadn’t done so and had had a miscarriage, would you consider her guilty of having an abortion?
Again repeating an earlier argument, I’ve read arguments that the most effective forms of contraception and emergency birth control should be banned because there is an unknown but small chance that they might prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus. In the case of emergency contraception, common sense and basic statistics leave me with the impression that the odds of it doing so are somewhat less than the odds of a pregnant woman losing her baby because she’s in an automobile accident, but since I don’t have hard numbers for either, that’s all conjecture on my part. As a woman who’s using one of those forms of birth control and for whom sterilization is not practical at this time, not to mention it would be less effective, I don’t like where the argument that life begins at fertilization goes.
I also know a woman who’s had two ectopic pregnancies. The argument that life begins at conception means she’s had two abortions and some would call her a murderess twice over if all they heard was that she had two abortions. As I said, I consider abortion immoral; I don’t consider what she did immoral.
CJ