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Top Non-CF Discussion "What Does RL Stand For?" Topic #338
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IsildurWed 13-Sep-06 01:34 PM
Member since 04th Mar 2003
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#338, "abortion thoughts"
Edited on Wed 13-Sep-06 01:43 PM

          

Would have replied on the other thread, but the sprawl thing...

Human at conception. This is primarily a religious viewpoint, but some scientists use it on the grounds that this is a gray area we should not tread in, and should therefore choose the most inclusive definition of life.

"Human at conception" needn't be a religious viewpoint. It's simply a viewpoint. The question's similar to "when does a child become an adult". There are all sorts of criteria one could invoke, but it's a matter of preference which you actually use.

Human at the point of detectable neural activity, which is somewhere around 18 weeks of pregnancy, and is definitely way before birth.

Yet, interestingly, states are prohibited from restricting abortion for reasons other than "maternal health" during the second trimester, which runs until the end of the 27th week. It's also worth noting that there have been babies (fetuses) born at 22 weeks that have survived (albeit not without serious long-term health problems).

18 weeks may also be an inaccurate figure for the appearance of measurable neural activity. According to these guys

http://www.vanderbilt.edu/SFL/fetology.htm

Edit: I noticed after the fact that this page was created by a students-for-life campus group, and as such may be subject to bias. However, their claims of brain wave activity do cite articles from mainstream medical journals: JAMA and New England Journal of Medicine.

brain waves can be measured as early as 8 weeks gestation (i.e. 6 weeks after conception).

In any case, I'm a little confused about why people seem to obsess over "consciousness" to the degree that they do. Consider a coma patient who can breathe without assistance. Is it permissable to end such a person's life? Why or why not? In the Schiavo case, the decision seemed to turn on whether she had any chance of ever reviving. The concensus was "no", so it was okay to let her die. If it had been reasonable to expect that she might someday revive, I doubt she would have been allowed to die.

So, apply this logic to a fetus. Even if we concede that it has no consciousness, at the very least it is extremely likely to gain consciousness in the near future. So why is it wrong to end the life of a coma patient, who "might" regain consciousness, but not wrong to end the life of a fetus, which arguably has a much greater chance of gaining consciousness?

  

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Topicabortion thoughts [View all] , Isildur, Wed 13-Sep-06 01:34 PM
Reply Apes and communication, DurNominator, 13-Sep-06 02:27 PM, #1
     Reply Apes, Dogs and other animals, Minyar, 14-Sep-06 12:47 PM, #2
          Reply Agreed. Lots of animals appear smart by that definition..., TheDude, 14-Sep-06 02:43 PM, #3
               Reply Mostly it makes him trainable, Theerkla, 14-Sep-06 02:57 PM, #4
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