What should abortion laws be?

[Toronado3800]

yeah, folks don't usually change eachother's opinions on abortion. Mine is more a political theory type of thing. Small government means fewer personal regulations so in areas open to debate which don't directly affect my life I'm pro-choice.

Selfish? yeah. Then again I don't want some big government intrusion bureaucrat in Washington coming to Oregon and telling me I can't get help from a professional to die peacefully before any cancer finishes making me a vegetable.

 

[Cecilie1200]

You specifically said:

Which includes fetuses you moron.

No, dumbass, it doesn't. A fetus is self-directing. It is HIS body that is controlling the oxygenation of his cells, not his mother's or a machine's. Yes, he DOES need to have access to oxygen in order to do that, but so do you. If I put a pillow over your face, you can't respirate, either, but that hardly means you aren't a self-directing organism.

By contrast, a braindead person on life support is NOT self-directing. The MACHINES are oxygenating his cells, he isn't. His brain is not sending out any signals to sustain and direct his existence, and neither is anything else in his body. This is not true of a fetus.

No- Not any more than a person who has oxygen delivered to them by a machine has, anyways. A fetus simply has a different oxygen SOURCE than a person on a machine does. And a braindead person is hardly a topic of interest to anyone on here, as they are clearly dead and the fact that they are attached to a machine does not change the fact that their "potential to be a person" again will never increase by being on that machine, which is the emotional comparison you make in your mind every time you compare a fetus to a braindead person. A person on life support (say one who either is or is not braindead, but cannot respirate or maintain a blood pressure on their own) is given blood pressure medication much the same way as a fetus being in the woman's body is given blood pressure through veins. Without those veins pumping blood, the fetus would promptly die. The same goes with oxygenation of the blood. It does not MATTER where the source of oxygen and blood comes from. A fetus without that SOURCE is much akin to a braindead person without the machines.

Okay, Punkinhead, stay with me on this if you possibly can.

Brain death - the cessation and irreversibility of all brain function, including brain stem. (emphasis mine) Brain Death Criteria - MEDSTUDENTS - NEUROLOGY

Brain death is not medically or legally equivalent to severe vegetative state. In a severe vegetative state, the cerebral cortex, the center of cognitive functions including consciousness and intelligence, may be dead while the brain stem, which controls basic life support functions such as respiration, is still functioning. Death is equivalent to brain stem death. Brain Death - body, life, cause, time

A life support ventilator does not just "provide oxygen" in this case, Punkinhead. It mechanically operates the lungs, which in turn keeps the heart beating, since the heart operates independently as long as there is oxygen. We are not talking about an oxygen mask, where it just pumps in the air for you to breathe. We are talking about a machine completely taking over for a brain stem which no longer sends out signals.

By contrast, as I said, a fetus's body is self-directing. The body controls its own oxygenation of its cells. The umbilical cord is the equivalent of a snorkel when one is swimming underwater. Are you not living at that point, because you need a conduit for the oxygen to travel through to reach you? You are correct that the source of the oxygen is not the point. The point is the source of the CONTROL OF THE OXYGENATION. In a braindead person, that control is a machine external to the body. In a fetus, it is the body itself.

Breathing -respirating by means of lungs - is a sign of life in born humans because it is easily recognizable by other humans. It is not life, and it certainly is not a requirement of being alive, since many life forms don't have lungs and do not breathe the way humans do, but are still alive and do still respirate. A human fetus simply happens to be a life form designed to respirate without lungs.

 

[☭proletarian☭]

Well, that explains that. We've been using different definitions...

 

[Cecilie1200]

Well, that explains that. We've been using different definitions...

When I say "dead", I mean DEAD. I thought this was pretty clear:

When I talk about "braindead", I am talking about people whose brains are not producing any useful function or meaningful guidance to the body, who require machines to provide respiration and circulation. I am talking about people who, if those machines were unplugged, would immediately cease circulation or respiration and expire immediately.

In other words, a DEAD BRAIN.

 

[Cecilie1200]

yeah, folks don't usually change eachother's opinions on abortion. Mine is more a political theory type of thing. Small government means fewer personal regulations so in areas open to debate which don't directly affect my life I'm pro-choice.

Selfish? yeah. Then again I don't want some big government intrusion bureaucrat in Washington coming to Oregon and telling me I can't get help from a professional to die peacefully before any cancer finishes making me a vegetable.

I'm not trying to change JD's opinion, because her opinion isn't predicated on any sort of facts or science data to start with, so no amount of fact or data can change it. Her opinion is based on her need to be totally self-absorbed and self-serving without having to accept what an utter and complete toxic waste of space she is. As you can see, her desperation for justification outweighs even the need to sound like a vaguely rational, educated human.

The reason I continue to explain and source these things is to prevent other people, most of whom have never thought about the issue in any great depth or specificity and who generally retain only the most rudimentary knowledge of biology, from being infected by her dangerously stupid, puerile, and - most important - DEAD WRONG statements of absurdity.

I don't know if anyone will change his mind or not, and I don't really care. What's important to me right now is to get people to own up, in hard, cold, unflinching fact, to what they believe in, instead of hiding behind warm, comforting vagueness and euphemisms.

 

[☭proletarian☭]

Well, that explains that. We've been using different definitions...

When I say "dead", I mean DEAD. I thought this was pretty clear:

When I talk about "braindead", I am talking about people whose brains are not producing any useful function or meaningful guidance to the body, who require machines to provide respiration and circulation. I am talking about people who, if those machines were unplugged, would immediately cease circulation or respiration and expire immediately.

In other words, a DEAD BRAIN.

I was referring to irreversible cessation of higher brain function.

 

[JD_2B]

LMAO!! Just because a machine forces air into the lungs does not make it any different from a fetus, whose oxygen is also FORCED into it's body by means of the oxygenated blood pumped through the woman's veins first.

A fetus cannot fucking continue to gestate without these functional biological mechanisms in place. As much as you want to try to twist all of this around, it is impossible for you to say that a fetus or embryo can survive independent the mother. Stop lying to yourself, please.

 

[☭proletarian☭]

Are you still claiming the mother's blood enters the fetus?

 

[Cecilie1200]

Well, that explains that. We've been using different definitions...

When I say "dead", I mean DEAD. I thought this was pretty clear:

When I talk about "braindead", I am talking about people whose brains are not producing any useful function or meaningful guidance to the body, who require machines to provide respiration and circulation. I am talking about people who, if those machines were unplugged, would immediately cease circulation or respiration and expire immediately.

In other words, a DEAD BRAIN.

I was referring to irreversible cessation of higher brain function.

That just makes one very, very damaged, not dead. Irreversible cessation of brain function, period, makes one dead, and is in fact the legal definition of "brain dead".

 

[Cecilie1200]

LMAO!! Just because a machine forces air into the lungs does not make it any different from a fetus, whose oxygen is also FORCED into it's body by means of the oxygenated blood pumped through the woman's veins first.

A fetus cannot fucking continue to gestate without these functional biological mechanisms in place. As much as you want to try to twist all of this around, it is impossible for you to say that a fetus or embryo can survive independent the mother. Stop lying to yourself, please.

Holy God in Heaven, you're thickheadedly, obtusely stupid. The woman's body doesn't "force" anything into the fetus's body, you flatliner. The mother's circulation brings oxygen to the placenta, where it is then transferred through the placental membrane to the fetus's blood, which then carries it to the rest of the fetus's body. It is the fetus's circulation, separate from the mother's, that takes his blood to and from the placenta, and that circulation is powered and directed by HIS body, not hers.

Of course a fetus can't survive earlier than a certain age outside of the womb, BECAUSE THE FETAL LIFEFORM IS DESIGNED TO LIVE IN THAT ENVIRONMENT. A fish can't live outside the water, either, but that doesn't say jack about whether or not it's alive.

Is it really such a hardship for you to pick up a fucking phone and discuss this with an actual obstetrician, so that you're not wasting everyone's time displaying this utterly appalling willful dumbfuckery? I swear, you are now appearing less informed about the mechanics of pregnancy than my teenager is.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Are you still claiming the mother's blood enters the fetus?

Apparently now she's not just claiming that, she's claiming that it's the mother's heart that's FORCING oxygenated blood into the fetus.

 

[☭proletarian☭]

When I say "dead", I mean DEAD. I thought this was pretty clear:

When I talk about "braindead", I am talking about people whose brains are not producing any useful function or meaningful guidance to the body, who require machines to provide respiration and circulation. I am talking about people who, if those machines were unplugged, would immediately cease circulation or respiration and expire immediately.

In other words, a DEAD BRAIN.

I was referring to irreversible cessation of higher brain function.

That just makes one very, very damaged, not dead. Irreversible cessation of brain function, period, makes one dead, and is in fact the legal definition of "brain dead".

When the sentient mind ceases to exist, the person ceases to exist as a sentient mind. (S) no longer exists. The brain is only tissue and is itself truly no different than muscle or bone when the emergent mind ceases to be.

 

[☭proletarian☭]

The person is the sentient mind, and their existence can be indirectly checked for by measuring the processes which give rise to it.

 

[Cecilie1200]

I was referring to irreversible cessation of higher brain function.

That just makes one very, very damaged, not dead. Irreversible cessation of brain function, period, makes one dead, and is in fact the legal definition of "brain dead".

When the sentient mind ceases to exist, the person ceases to exist as a sentient mind. (S) no longer exists. The brain is only tissue and is itself truly no different than muscle or bone when the emergent mind ceases to be.

I'm afraid that your opinion on the importance of sentience is irrelevant to the question of life or death. We were discussing brain death, which requires the brain to actually be dead.

 

[Cecilie1200]

The person is the sentient mind, and their existence can be indirectly checked for by measuring the processes which give rise to it.

Again, that is entirely your opinion.

 

[☭proletarian☭]

I thought we were discussing the value of tissue versus the mind and when the organism should be protected?

 

[☭proletarian☭]

The person is the sentient mind, and their existence can be indirectly checked for by measuring the processes which give rise to it.

Again, that is entirely your opinion.

Actually, it's fact.

no brain activity--> no emergent sentience

 

[Cecilie1200]

I thought we were discussing the value of tissue versus the mind and when the organism should be protected?

Not really. At the moment, you and I are - or were - discussing my definition of "person". I said, "living human being"; you said, "Well, what about the brain dead?"; I explained where they fit in and why, and JD rushed in to dazzle us all with her ignorance of biology.

 

[Cecilie1200]

The person is the sentient mind, and their existence can be indirectly checked for by measuring the processes which give rise to it.

Again, that is entirely your opinion.

Actually, it's fact.

no brain activity--> no emergent sentience

True, but "person = sentience" is entirely your opinion.

 

[☭proletarian☭]

Again, that is entirely your opinion.

Actually, it's fact.

no brain activity--> no emergent sentience

True, but "person = sentience" is entirely your opinion.

to use 'person=human organism' is meaningless. What is missing in the braindead if not the mind? If dependence on machines is all, then what of a man with a failing heart or kidneys?