Redux: Rape, Abortion, and "Personhood"

[Bells]

Doesn't matter. Hospitals often hold on to corpses for some time to do autopsies etc. I am sure they'll release her body to her family in good time.

But they aren't holding onto it to do an autopsy, are they? They are holding onto her corpse to use the womb because they are pro-life. All without consent.

As I said, the pro-lifers are now delving into the wombs of dead women without consent. What a comforting thought.

Fetal heart rate is a good indicator of brain activity. An anencepahlic fetus will not have the same heartbeat variability as a healthy fetus.

It changes as the pregnancy progresses. For example, in a study of a woman carrying twins, one of whom was anencepahlic, the differences in the heart beat occurred from around 25 weeks.

During the later stages of pregnancy, and during birth, yes, an unhealthy heart rate can be indicative of possible brain injury. But at the start of the pregnancy, it may not always be so. And in this case:

Doctors have as yet been unable to assess the damage that the many drugs used to revive Munoz’s heart, and her hour without oxygen, may have done to her pregnancy.​

 

[billvon]

But they aren't holding onto it to do an autopsy, are they?

Nope. Just pointing out that hospitals hold onto corpses for all sorts of reasons. In this case, they are holding on to it in an attempt to save another life.

During the later stages of pregnancy, and during birth, yes, an unhealthy heart rate can be indicative of possible brain injury.

Agreed. And right now an ultrasound would be fairly predictive.

Doctors have as yet been unable to assess the damage that the many drugs used to revive Munoz’s heart, and her hour without oxygen, may have done to her pregnancy.

Quite literally true no matter what they find via ultrasound/fetal HRM; they won't know for sure until an attempt to deliver the fetus, and even then they might not know 100% what problems the fetus may have. All an ultrasound would do would be to give an indication of whether there is profound brain damage.

 

[iceaura]

Hospitals often hold on to corpses for some time to do autopsies etc.

Not without consent of the next of kin, or a living will.

And if the body has some utility in saving another life, then no issues in using it for that.

As you may notice from the various controversies surrounding orqan donation, laws against cannibalism and necrophiliac sexual behavior, the public perception of grave robbing and corpse desecration, and so forth, there are a great many issues involved in employing people's bodies for their "utility" to others. That is true even of actually dead, rotting bodies.

Using a bunch of wired up and intubated dead people as an organ farm against the wishes of their families, to grow dozens of transplant kidneys from stem cell seeding or the like, would not be justified merely by pointing to the lives saved - right?

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

As I said, the pro-lifers are now delving into the wombs of dead women without consent. What a comforting thought.

At every turn they remind us that in their paradigm, any fetus is more important than a human in any other stage of development, and more important than the relationships among us.

Doctors have as yet been unable to assess the damage that the many drugs used to revive Munoz’s heart, and her hour without oxygen, may have done to her pregnancy.

Not only do they reject the common-sense practice of checking the viability of a fetus during its development and recommending abortion if it has no chance of a halfway normal life (anencephalic, for example), but now they are taking extraordinary measures to salvage a fetus that has been subject to catastrophic conditions and attempting to return it to some semblance of viability, when those catastrophic conditions are very likely to have taken away whatever chance it had of a halfway normal life.

These so-called "pro-life" people don't even have a consistent, coherent definition of "life." There's a very good chance that once delivered the fetus in this case will require heroic measures, involving high technology and oodles of money, just to keep its blood pumping, and that it will only be "alive" in the same sense that an anencephalic newborn is "alive."

A mushroom is more alive than that! It doesn't require kilobucks worth of technology and round-the-clock monitoring in order to still be alive tomorrow.

 

[lightgigantic]

At every turn they remind us that in their paradigm, any fetus is more important than a human in any other stage of development, and more important than the relationships among us.

so what stage of development is a brain dead woman with practically zero chance of recovery?

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

so what stage of development is a brain dead woman with practically zero chance of recovery?

Ask her husband. To a person whose beloved spouse is lying in a coma hooked up to machines, "practically zero" is a synonym for "not zero."

 

[billvon]

Not without consent of the next of kin, or a living will.

Untrue. If there is a suspicion of a health risk to others, autopsies can be ordered against a family's will. (And the certain death of a fetus whose continuing support is mandated by state law would certainly qualify as a potential health risk.)

As you may notice from the various controversies surrounding orqan donation, laws against cannibalism and necrophiliac sexual behavior, the public perception of grave robbing and corpse desecration, and so forth, there are a great many issues involved in employing people's bodies for their "utility" to others. That is true even of actually dead, rotting bodies.

Agreed; there are a great many issues, many of which people feel quite strongly about.

Using a bunch of wired up and intubated dead people as an organ farm against the wishes of their families, to grow dozens of transplant kidneys from stem cell seeding or the like, would not be justified merely by pointing to the lives saved - right?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Google "Henrietta Lacks." Tissue from her corpse has resulted in thousands of medical patents, earlier introduction of vaccines and breakthroughs in medical science. While it is impossible to determine with a high accuracy how many lives were saved or prolonged by the unauthorized use of her corpse, it has likely saved thousands.

This led, in part, to a court case on the ethics of this. In 1990, the California Supreme Court ruled that a person's discarded tissue and cells are not their property and can be commercialized.

However, all this seems fairly beside the point. The ethics of people on life support have been debated for decades, and in general someone who is brain dead but on life support is not considered a "corpse." That's why there is an argument at all on when/how to remove them from life support - a decision that would be meaningless if they were truly equivalent to a corpse.

 

[lightgigantic]

Ask her husband. To a person whose beloved spouse is lying in a coma hooked up to machines, "practically zero" is a synonym for "not zero."

You still fail to explain how the "status of her development" can be deemed as superior to that of the child she is carrying.
I don't know how many posts have gone by now but we are still having difficulty getting certain parties to concede that the child in the womb has a better chances of survival than the mother ... which tends to be the standard barter for determining who's existence bears more consideration in any sort of "give or take" scenario.
I can't see how the opinions of a beloved spouse under-ride that fact.

 

[iceaura]

Not without consent of the next of kin, or a living will.
Untrue. If there is a suspicion of a health risk to others, autopsies can be ordered against a family's will.

Which does not involve "holding on to a corpse for some time", as claimed.

Using a bunch of wired up and intubated dead people as an organ farm against the wishes of their families, to grow dozens of transplant kidneys from stem cell seeding or the like, would not be justified merely by pointing to the lives saved - right?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Google "Henrietta Lacks." Tissue from her corpse - -

No. The cells were taken from the parasitic tumor growing in her living body during her medical treatment, and cultured in vitro. Her dead body was treated with ordinary respect and consideration.

Had someone tried to keep her brain dead body intubated and wired up in a lab in order to grow those cells in perpetuity, against her family's wishes and without her consent, what do you think would have been the reaction - at least from normal people in good mental health?

The ethics of people on life support have been debated for decades, and in general someone who is brain dead but on life support is not considered a "corpse."

Then they are to be treated as a living human being, and doctors are to act in their best interest as communicated by them, failing that their living will, failing that their next of kin, failing that an appointed person charged with their best interests.

Farming them for babies on the say-so of some doctor even, let alone a politician, is unlikely to qualify.

You still fail to explain how the "status of her development" can be deemed as superior to that of the child she is carrying.

Nobody was "carrying a child" in this incident.

I don't know how many posts have gone by now but we are still having difficulty getting certain parties to concede that the child in the womb has a better chances of survival than the mother

In this event the "child in the womb" (as you creepy pervs keep referring to it) had no chance of survival whatsoever - that was why the woman's body was kept on life support, remember?

 

[billvon]

Had someone tried to keep her brain dead body intubated and wired up in a lab in order to grow those cells in perpetuity, against her family's wishes and without her consent, what do you think would have been the reaction - at least from normal people in good mental health?

If they had said "doing this will save thousands of lives?" You'd probably get a very strong argument from both sides of the debate.

Then they are to be treated as a living human being

You'll have to take that up with Bells - she has been stating for pages that she is nothing more than a corpse.

 

[lightgigantic]

In this event the "child in the womb" (as you creepy pervs keep referring to it)

If your tried talking in that manner to a pregnant woman IRL she would probably call the police

had no chance of survival whatsoever - that was why the woman's body was kept on life support, remember?

feel free to properly source that conclusion of yours about the child in the child in the womb having no chance of survival whatsoever (outside of the hysteria of certain posters on sciforums of course)

 

[iceaura]

If they had said "doing this will save thousands of lives?" You'd probably get a very strong argument from both sides of the debate.

You aren't getting that argument now - that kind of abusive treatment of the deceased and their families is forbidden by every research hospital that has rules at all.

It would be in a courtroom - where the fact that they had no idea whether they'd be saving any lives or not, when they launched the travesty, would be one of the obvious facts.

Then they are to be treated as a living human being
You'll have to take that up with Bells - she has been stating for pages that she is nothing more than a corpse.

Then I would not take it up with Bells, since she is not trying to justify this horrorshow on the grounds that the principal victim is alive, that the desecration is not of a dead person but a living one, so it's fine to do. She's not the one trying to justify abuse of a dead person on the grounds that they have been abused - intubated and wired up to keep their organs functioning, therefore alive, therefore not being abused, so it's OK.

The fact that a brain dead body is being kept mechanically functioning - "alive" - against the wishes of the family and the ordinary ethical policy of the medical profession and in violation of common decency itself, for its "utility" to somebody else as designated by a politician, was the issue.

Seriously - did you even read that "argument" back to yourself, after typing it in?

If your tried talking in that manner to a pregnant woman IRL she would probably call the police

I'll just talk like that to you, then. Creepy folk like you are never pregnant women themselves, in my experience.

feel free to properly source that conclusion of yours about the child in the child in the womb having no chance of survival whatsoever

It was your justification, right here, for abusing the dead - you needed their body to "carry the baby" so it could live, which it otherwise could not. Of course that's not a reliable source, but in this context a proper one, I think.

 

[lightgigantic]

I'll just talk like that to you, then. Creepy folk like you are never pregnant women themselves, in my experience.

as long as you can limit these excursions from "real life dialogue" to your internet discussions, I guess you can avoid encounters with law enforcement officials

It was your justification, right here, for abusing the dead - you needed their body to "carry the baby" so it could live, which it otherwise could not. Of course that's not a reliable source, but in this context a proper one, I think.

err ... once again :

feel free to properly source that conclusion of yours about the child in the womb having no chance of survival whatsoever

 

[billvon]

You aren't getting that argument now - that kind of abusive treatment of the deceased and their families is forbidden by every research hospital that has rules at all.

We ARE having that argument now, in case you haven't noticed. (In this case it is due to a state law; clearly some support it and some do not.)

It would be in a courtroom - where the fact that they had no idea whether they'd be saving any lives or not, when they launched the travesty, would be one of the obvious facts.

Agreed. In this case the odds of it saving a life are higher.

Then I would not take it up with Bells

Fine with me.

Seriously - did you even read that "argument" back to yourself, after typing it in?

And which argument was that? The one you have refused to have with Bells? Fair enough - that's your problem, not mine.

 

[iceaura]

We ARE having that argument now, in case you haven't noticed

No, we aren't.

In the first place, the argument at issue was to be between "both sides", whatever you meant by that, in a third party hospital setting - my claim was that it does not exist, for the simple reason that most people would react with horror to such a proposal (that's why it shows up in film once in a while, in a genre labeled "horror"). If you think you can find it somewhere - the real life proposal, being debated as you said by "both sides" - feel free to show me where.

In the second place, you aren't arguing to the issue, with anybody: Given the nature of your confusion over the HeLa cell line, I'm not even sure you've located the issue

Agreed. In this case the odds of it saving a life are higher

That's probably not true - and certainly unknown, which is part of the problem and illustrates the moral and ethical bankruptcy of the behavior.

And which argument was that? The one you have refused to have with Bells? Fair enough - that's your problem, not mine.

There is no argument with Bells. Bells is not trying to hand out your preposterous line of "reasoning", the goofy stuff I'm attempting to "argue" with, as if simply typing it as you did would not be enough in a sanity based discussion.

In a sense there's a charming simplicity to the thing -

loop the first: one is not abusing a deceased person and their family and so forth by keeping their major organs alive mechanically in defiance of their family's wishes and without their consent, because one is keeping their major organs alive - the deed justifies itself.

loop the second: one is not abusing a braindead living person by intubating them and so forth against their will, against their interests, in defiance of their next of kin and legal representatives, with no prospect of aiding them and every expectation of harming them, because they are dead - one is not keeping them alive, so the deed needs no such justification.

Loop the first is rather widely applicable - one is not robbing a bank, because the money is in this bag being seized - not in the bank, see? One has not robbed a bank because one has the money, has robbed the bank.

Banks, unfortunately, are treated with more respect than pregnant women.

It was your justification, right here, for abusing the dead - you needed their body to "carry the baby" so it could live, which it otherwise could not. Of course that's not a reliable source, but in this context a proper one, I think.
err ... once again :

feel free to properly source that conclusion of yours

It was your justification, right here, for abusing the dead

I can quote that as often as you can. It's the handiest source available - and amusing to see you reject it.

 

[lightgigantic]

I can quote that as often as you can. It's the handiest source available - and amusing to see you reject it.

You also have displayed the capacity to compose statements that have no bearing on anything anyone says.

so once again :

feel free to properly source that conclusion of yours about the child in the womb having no chance of survival whatsoever

since you did say this :

In this event the "child in the womb" had no chance of survival whatsoever - that was why the woman's body was kept on life support, remember?

... or alternatively you can continue to troll

:shrug:

 

[Bells]

You'll have to take that up with Bells - she has been stating for pages that she is nothing more than a corpse.

That was actually the argument made to me by pro-life people a few pages back, who declared that since she is nothing more than a corpse, then she has no rights - this was the response made when I commented that the pro-life crowd had now managed to wrangle their way into the wombs of dead people to grow babies without consent. So you might want to take it up with Asguard and Electric Fetus.

What her wishes were prior to that and her spouse and her parents rights mean nothing apparently.

And why? Because apparently her 14 week old foetus was a "child". If it was a child, it would not be 14 weeks old in her womb.

There was much discussion and even disagreement that the foetus may not have suffered any brain damage while the mother lay dead, and not breathing for over an hour. When reality shows that in the event of a mother dying, doctors have about a 5 minute window, even while trying to resuscitate her, to get the foetus out and the foetus is likely to suffer some brain damage if they are lucky.

Her husband has a right to bury his wife's body in accordance to her wishes and that of her family.

Instead, we have a hospital interpreting the law to match with its political ideology, and keeping a dead woman on life support because they want to use her womb for as long as they see fit... without consent.

There are no words to describe just how fucked up that is.

 

[Bells]

If your tried talking in that manner to a pregnant woman IRL she would probably call the police

Try telling a pregnant woman in real life that if she died, that it would be okay, because people like you could happily keep her on a ventilator until you could take the "child" from her womb, and see how fast the police are called then.

feel free to properly source that conclusion of yours about the child in the child in the womb having no chance of survival whatsoever (outside of the hysteria of certain posters on sciforums of course)

Feel free to show any source that a "child" born at 14 weeks has any chance of survival.

 

[lightgigantic]

Feel free to show any source that a "child" born at 14 weeks has any chance of survival.

feel free to find where I made *that argument*

(or alternatively fall in line withe desperate trolling of iceaura in a bid to make people accountable for arguments they never offered)

*:shrug:*

 

[Asguard]

Its funny how Bells and others are jumping up and down about ensuring she is buried as quick as possible because she is dead, in spite of the fact that delaying the beetles a feed it could bring a new human into being. Already the government overrules the families's "rights" when it suits them in ALL countries including ours. How many times have the police and coroner's office ignored Islamic traditions about burial to conduct an autopsy? Don't hear Bells jumping up and down about family rights over THAT