When Does Life End?

RStringfield said:
You have not provided a source. I was supposed to discredit an unknown source? You simply made a claim. I can counter that easily with just another claim.
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????....post 26....I even quoted it for you...here it is again...

Week 4-5 Chemicals produced by the embryo stop the woman's menstrual cycle. Neurogenesis is underway, showing brain activity at about the 6th week.[3]
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Embryo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

as for your link, pain perception is not the only type of brain activity....the most fundamental brain activity are the autonomous body functions such as heart beat, breathing, etc.....those are the functions that must cease before we consider a person to be "brain dead".....
 
Socrtease said:
so your statement that there would be no abortions within the first 20 weeks is really ill informed. In fact that same link shows that a total of 1.1% of ALL abortions are performed AFTER 1%.
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since my statement was about the sixth week (not 20th) it would seem that all of your children prove my point rather than contradict it....as usual, you didn't bother to read my posts before you commented.....
 
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Dixie said:
It seems to me, the debate is being centered around "brain activity" and not the human condition. The reason we oppose abortion is not because a brain is destroyed blah blah blah usual dixie bs
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Wow, that is insightful!

The original post was about brain activity and how we define life and death. So of course that is what the debate is about.
 
PostmodernProphet said:
as for your link, pain perception is not the only type of brain activity....the most fundamental brain activity are the autonomous body functions such as heart beat, breathing, etc.....those are the functions that must cease before we consider a person to be "brain dead".....
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I was not talking about pain. From the source...

Functional maturity of the cerebral cortex is suggested by fetal and neonatal electroencephalographic patterns...First, intermittent electroencephalograpic bursts in both cerebral hemispheres are first seen at 20 weeks gestation; they become sustained at 22 weeks and bilaterally synchronous at 26 to 27 weeks.
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RStringfield said:
This is not a valid source.
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obviously there is brain activity by the sixth week.....the heart has formed and begun to pump by that point.....a heart cannot beat without brain activity.....

the very first thing that develops after implantation is the neural tube...
• Neural tube forms - It will develop into the nervous system (Brain, spinal cord, hair, and skin). Already your baby has the foundation for thought, senses, feeling, and more!
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http://www.pregnancy.org/fetaldevelopment/weeks-1-4

Weeks 4 to 5 of gestation; week 6 - 7 of pregnancy

* Arm and leg buds become visible.
* The brain develops into five areas and some cranial nerves are visible.
* The eyes and ear structures begin to form.
* Tissue forms that develops into the vertebra and some other bones.
* The heart continues to develop and now beats at a regular rhythm.
* Rudimentary blood moves through the main vessels.
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http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002398.htm

Week 6: The neural tube closes

Growth is rapid this week. Just four weeks after conception, the neural tube along your baby's back is closing and your baby's heart is pumping blood.
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http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/prenatal-care/PR00112
 
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RStringfield said:
As was explained the lack of brain activity is sufficient to determine death. Are you arguing that the brain dead are alive and should be kept on life support?
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The level of brain activity is irrelevant to a large degree....as long as the brain has sufficient functionality to support the needed body functions you are alive........the phrase 'brain dead' or 'vegetative state' have to do with the quality of life or being cognitive and aware.....
you don't need to be aware to be physically alive....lets stick with the science of being alive and not the quality of life...

If you need to be kept on life support then your brain is not sustaining your body functions, machines are, and that life is artificial.......completely different issues...
 
PostmodernProphet said:
obviously there is brain activity by the sixth week.....the heart has formed and begun to pump by that point.....a heart cannot beat without brain activity.....
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He's trying to use a more philosophical version of "thought" not just any activity. The reality is that science cannot answer when you suddenly become a "person" that is always subjective, but any person with any higher thought knows that it would happen some time when you are in the womb. Trying to put an non-arbitrary measure on such a subjective target is nearly impossible.
 
A mother is not a machine, so don't try to compare life support to the mothers womb....even though a developing human must rely on the mothers womb for life, it is still a life from conception....
 
The brain has no magic powers....it is no more important to life than the heart or the lungs or the pancreas or the liver......they are all organs needed to sustain independent life in a developed human being....and before these organs sustain our lives, our lives are dependent on our mothers womb and its life sustaining activities....
 
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Damocles said:
He's trying to use a more philosophical version of "thought" not just any activity. The reality is that science cannot answer when you suddenly become a "person" that is always subjective, but any person with any higher thought knows that it would happen some time when you are in the womb. Trying to put an non-arbitrary measure on such a subjective target is nearly impossible.
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Not only impossible, but irrelevant to question....
 
Socrtease said:
God you pro-choicers are so dumb, first tell us that you cannot know you are pregnant for 20 weeks, and now that a brain dead fetus cannot develop. Ever heard of Anacephaly (sp)? Children born with only the brain stem, no functioning brain at all? What other made up shit will you tell us?

PS almost every person considered brain dead still has brain stem activity. Brain Death is ONLY measured from the brain itself and not the stem.
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You displayed your own ignorance. Anencephaly is not brain death it is a failure for the frontal portion of the brain to close and develope properly! The portion of the brain that has developed at this stage (23-26th day) is still functioning ENOUGH for development of the fetus to continue. I have NEVER stated that a woman cannot know she is pregnant at 20 weeks. A woman who pays attention can know within 10 days if she has conceived!

P.S. I know what brain death is. A fetus who suffers actual brain death will cease to develope. A person who is considered brain dead (brain stem death)will not survive apart from mechanically provided life support due to total necrosis.

I don't make shit up asshole.
 
bravo said:
The brain has no magic powers....it is no more important to life than the heart or the lungs or the pancreas or the liver......they are all organs needed to sustain independent life in a developed human being....and before these organs sustain our lives, our lives are dependent on our mothers womb and its life sustaining activities....
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Not true. Your heart can completely stop and you can be easily resuscitated. The doctors give up when your brain is gone.
 
RStringfield said:
What was factually untrue?



Do you have a source for this. Are you arguing the brain is present at conception?
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Brain, brain activity, and consistency

Perhaps brain activity would serve as a publicly-recognizable criterion for taking developing human life as person, at least in the legal realm. Death is ever more often legally defined as the irreversable cessation of whole-brain activity (such activity is not just in the outer cerebral cortex, but anywhere in the brain). There is a certain consistency in taking activity anywhere in the brain as an indication that the developing human life is appropriately taken to be person. In pre-natal human life, brain develops in the third week, and in the fifth week a tri-partite brain is formed. At present brain waves can be detected after the eighth week, so probably brain activity at some level is going on earlier.
 
Ice Dancer said:
Brain, brain activity, and consistency

Perhaps brain activity would serve as a publicly-recognizable criterion for taking developing human life as person, at least in the legal realm. Death is ever more often legally defined as the irreversable cessation of whole-brain activity (such activity is not just in the outer cerebral cortex, but anywhere in the brain). There is a certain consistency in taking activity anywhere in the brain as an indication that the developing human life is appropriately taken to be person. In pre-natal human life, brain develops in the third week, and in the fifth week a tri-partite brain is formed. At present brain waves can be detected after the eighth week, so probably brain activity at some level is going on earlier.
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That's just an opinion piece.
 
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