A functioning brain just means a brain that is functioning to some extent. That is, cerebral neurons can fire in a coordinated fashion, etc. Our brains, not our bodies, determine who we are. A brain dead person is considered medically dead, and as far as I’m aware, this does not contradict the Catholic Church.That problem originates in your philosophical construct, not mine, so you must answer that. You must explain what a “functioning brain” means. Are you referring to the ability to think? And then think in what quality of thought? Or are you referring to the brain’s interaction with the nervous system, in which case you must explain where the line is in the medula, spinal cord or where in the nervous system?
But I for one do not agree that a “functioning brain” in the way you are using the term is “critical to being considered a person”. I am putting forth that human life is critical to being considered a person, and that anything short of that is, in fact, an irrational, inhumane and immoral viewpoint.
Then I would assert that you have an incomplete inderstanding of what the Church teaches. However, since you appear to be invincibly ignorant and utterly immune to truth, I will not waste my time repeating what the other faithful Catholic on this thread have stated.A functioning brain just means a brain that is functioning to some extent. That is, cerebral neurons can fire in a coordinated fashion, etc. Our brains, not our bodies, determine who we are. A brain dead person is considered medically dead, and as far as I’m aware, this does not contradict the Catholic Church.
But it will never become a monkey and will, from the beginning become a human being. The difference between a monkey and a human being is a difference in kind, not a difference in degree. No matter how small the change necessary to produce the monkey, the final result is devastatingly and irrevocably different.I’m not sure how to explain this without sounding like I’m not taking this seriously, but I’ll try. I know this isn’t the best analogy, but it’s all I have until I think of a better one, so bear with me. Your DNA is a set of instructions, like a recipe. It tells the first cell of a zygote how to build a person. The rest of the cell is like the ingredients for the recipe. It divides and absorbs nutrients, and shapes itself into a blastula, then an embryo, then a fetus, then an infant. But at the beginning, it’s still ingredients and a recipe, not a person quite yet. If it were changed just a little, it could become a monkey or something.
Putting aside the entirety of the law, can we agree that if law does not guarantee to protect life as a first right, the balance of the law is irrelevant? And if does not protect life as a first right, it is destined to be a lawless society? If I cannot persuade a population life itself must be cherished, on what basis can I persuade it that property must be protected, that the defenseless must be defended, that parents must be respected or children sheltered? What is the use of a right to privacy if a right to life does not precede it?But with abortion, it is extremely offensive to some people, and only slightly offensive to others. Reason too, can go either way. Hence the problem, and the reason there is no great legal solution to this problem.
That is not the same as saying there is a person and then there is a body. The Church holds that man is a unity of body and soul, material and spirit.It’s not just my opinion, even the Church says there is a difference between body and soul, and indeed most people and religions note the distinction between the body, which carries us around, and the person who occupies the body. With a zygote, there may be some vestiges of a body, but it clearly does not think or feel or have any form of consciousness. Thus, some people would deny that it’s a person.
Then we need also to reach an agreement that first trimester abortions are a problem and our work here is done.I am offended by late-term abortions. If they can live outside of the mother, there is no reason they should ever be aborted. That is why I get upset when people keep trying to characterize me as supporting it. I’ve just stopped responding to them now, because there are too many. But Roe v. Wade actually does prohibit late-term abortions except in the case of where it risks the life or health of the mother. The problem is that some doctors take a liberal interpretation of “health”. And I agree with you that this is a problem.
Correct, but read with Doe, the “protections” melt away. The US abortion policy is the most liberal in the world, and has been consistently misrepresented in the press and in preface statements to surveys to restrict abortion to the first trimester which it clearly does not.The decision actually divided a pregnancy into trimesters and assigned different protections to each one. I actually read the whole thing once for a class. It tries to be a compromise although most people don’t see it that way.
You are not seeing, though, that the standard you are advocating leads irrevocably to the second result. Do you think that the entire elite of the German medical profession, the best of the best, from whom the holocaust originated were all originally people of ill-will? Or were they rather scientists who accepted the theories of eugenics propagated by the likes of Margaret Sanger and prevalent in most countries at the time? When life is not protected first and last because it is human life, there are in the end no protections.It makes sense that to be a person requires the capacity for consciousness and self-awareness. In all of these cases, people were given status as non-persons despite having consciousness and self-awareness.
The Church would teach that we are an integrated whole, body and soul. The brain is the intermediary of the soul.A functioning brain just means a brain that is functioning to some extent. That is, cerebral neurons can fire in a coordinated fashion, etc. Our brains, not our bodies, determine who we are. A brain dead person is considered medically dead, and as far as I’m aware, this does not contradict the Catholic Church.
It is at this point a life to be protected no longer exists.Brain Death is the Death of the Individual
The concept of brain death does not seek to promote the notion that there
is more than one form of death. Rather, this specific terminology relates to a
particular state, within a sequence of events, that constitutes the death of an
individual. Thus brain death means the irreversible cessation of all the vital
activity of the brain (the cerebral hemispheres and the brain stem). This
involves an irreversible loss of function of the brain cells and their total, or
near total, destruction. The brain is dead and the functioning of the other
organs is maintained directly and indirectly by artificial means. This state
results solely and specifically from the use of modern medical techniques and,
with only rare exceptions, it can only be maintained for a limited time.
Technology can preserve the organs of a dead person (one appropriately pronounced
dead by neurological criteria) for a period of time, usually only hours
to days, rarely longer. Nevertheless, that individual is dead.
I remember someone telling me I was wrong, wrong, wrong, but not how or why.Then I would assert that you have an incomplete inderstanding of what the Church teaches. However, since you appear to be invincibly ignorant and utterly immune to truth, I will not waste my time repeating what the other faithful Catholic on this thread have stated.
I will remember you, should I see you on other threads, however.
Well, first you need to specify that it’s the lives of people that you are referring to. And therein we have the problem.Putting aside the entirety of the law, can we agree that if law does not guarantee to protect life as a first right, the balance of the law is irrelevant? And if does not protect life as a first right, it is destined to be a lawless society? If I cannot persuade a population life itself must be cherished, on what basis can I persuade it that property must be protected, that the defenseless must be defended, that parents must be respected or children sheltered? What is the use of a right to privacy if a right to life does not precede it?
To be fair, the egg and sperm take a while to combine. First the sperm penetrates the surface of the egg. Then the nuclei move toward each other. Then the outer membranes of the nuclei merge. Then the inner membranes of the nuclei merge. Then each chromosome pairs up with its homologue. Then the cell divides for the first time. So there’s not exactly a precise second where you can say it goes from being sperm and egg to being a person in that instance either.We can start with the observation that the difference between a second trimester abortion and a first trimester abortion is, what, a second? In other words, the way you represent it there is a second where an abortion is okay and a second where it is not. But in the second where it was okay to abort the child, it was already in the process of arriving at the second when it was not okay to abort. What changed in that second? Why should all the preparation of the prior second be a less meaningful indication of life than the simple movement - if that is your starting point - of the second moment?
That’s ridiculous, and it’s the mentality that got us prohibition. In that case, they had the idea that drinking inevitably leads to addiction, which inevitably leads to crime and rape and murder and all manners of nasty things. Granted, prohibition wasn’t the worst thing to ever happen to the US, but it was a mistake, and it was based on faulty logic.You are not seeing, though, that the standard you are advocating leads irrevocably to the second result. Do you think that the entire elite of the German medical profession, the best of the best, from whom the holocaust originated were all originally people of ill-will? Or were they rather scientists who accepted the theories of eugenics propagated by the likes of Margaret Sanger and prevalent in most countries at the time? When life is not protected first and last because it is human life, there are in the end no protections.
Ok. So a person’s life ends when all brain activity ceases, regardless of the functioning of the rest of the body. Would it not make sense then, that a person’s life begins when brain activity begins?It is at this point a life to be protected no longer exists.
So? In one case, the brain is no longer there. In the other, the brain is not there yet. Neither has a functioning brain.Not comparable because one is at the point at which the brain is forming, the other, when the brain will no longer function.
Scientific evidence of what? While it is interesting, it doesn’t contradict anything I said.Luis,
Here is a link for you. The Carnegie stages - these were written by someone who is neither a pro-lifer or a Catholic, as far as I know. Perhaps they will help you and others understand. It’s scientific evidence: embryology.med.unsw.edu.au/wwwhuman/Stages/CStages.htm
Catholic theologians disagree with the Church all the time. And I’m certainly not trying to find a way to end life. If anything, I’m trying to draw a distinction between early and late abortions so we can do something about late abortions without running up against all the people who think early abortions should sometimes be allowed.By the way, since you proclaim to be Catholic, you are called to **protect **life from the first moment of conception until natural death. NOT try to find a way to end it.
If you think the two are comparable, then you’re in need of some critical thinking skills.So? In one case, the brain is no longer there. In the other, the brain is not there yet. Neither has a functioning brain.
Our laws prior to 1973 were generally based on Christian principles we could agree on, especially those principles of life, death and protection of the innocent. The law of God is not made by humans, but by God only.I use “legally” in the sense of “of or pertaining to the law”. Thus, “legally equating abortion and murder” means “having the law view abortion and murder as the same thing”.
Until around the 19th century, it was much more difficult to enforce laws, so there were significantly fewer of them. In the US, abortion laws didn’t appear on the books until the 1820s or so. I don’t want to argue this point since that goes off-topic, but I do want to clear this up. Look at this article, and read the section entitled “Abortion before Roe”.
Please don’t turn this thread into another one where I repeatedly explain the difference between saying abortion is wrong and equating abortion to murder. In every nation that has made abortion illegal, it has been a different and lesser crime than murder, at least in the early stages.
In some parts of the speech it can seem that way, I admit. But his main point on the subject is that we are a nation of many religions and beliefs, so we have to base our laws on principles that we can agree on. Do you think this is true?
And why not??? Free exercise of religion means that we need not check our beliefs at the door when we run for office or vote.However, if there is widespread disagreement on whether a law should exist or not, as is the case with abortion, then both sides need to use arguments that are not grounded in any particular faith.
No, a brain dead person is not medically dead. Otherwise the church would have no problems with just burying them right there and then with functioning organ systems. That is precisely why the catagory of “brain dead” exists, otherwise one is just plain dead.A functioning brain just means a brain that is functioning to some extent. That is, cerebral neurons can fire in a coordinated fashion, etc. Our brains, not our bodies, determine who we are. A brain dead person is considered medically dead, and as far as I’m aware, this does not contradict the Catholic Church.
Nope. As has been pointe out who we are = our body (including brain) + our soulMy point was that it is our brain that determines who we are as a person, and indeed a person with a nonfunctioning brain is considered medically dead.
No, Luis. It does not follow. The life ends when brain activity ceases because the cessation marks the insupportability of the body as a whole, not because it is the brain. As you know, in the beginning, the body will continue to develop in its natural environment, thus requiring direct killing to stop the process.Ok. So a person’s life ends when all brain activity ceases, regardless of the functioning of the rest of the body. Would it not make sense then, that a person’s life begins when brain activity begins?
So how would the heart be kept alive for doing heart transplants? If I’m not mistaken, Biggie quoted a Church document saying that when a brain stops functioning the individual is dead.The Church has a problem with harvesting organs from people who are still alive. "Brain death’ is not the Church’s criteria for death. Both heart and brain must cease functioning. There can still be brain activity under brain death. BD criteria were developed in order to facilitate organ harvesting. Pope Benedict recently reemphasized that no organs are to be harvested from those still alive.
I anticipated this, which is why I always said capable of being aware. If I’m asleep, I’m not aware, but I’m certainly capable of being aware. If I’m in a coma, my brain may be capable of awareness there too, but in this case it’s hard to say, so doctors would give me the benefit of the doubt. You might say that a zygote can eventually be capable of awareness too, but this is also true of a sperm and egg. In addition, a coma patient already has the capability to be aware, but in a zygote, that capacity has not appeared yet.Being aware as a basis for personhood would mean that all of us would not be persons when we are asleep. So then if someone kills you in during sleep it isn’t murder, since according to your criteria, you aren’t a person with rights? This is obviously not a workable definition of personhood.
We were all an egg and a sperm at some point. Yes, a zygote is alive. Yes, it is human. But to say it has all the rights of a grown person is like saying that if I type one letter on my keyboard, I’ve written a book.The Church has it right on: from the moment fertilization is complete, a new human being with body and soul exists.
See Dr. Paul Bynes, M.D. for more extensive information.
None of us were ever an egg or a sperm. But each of us was a zygote, blastocyst, embryo and fetus at one time. Review Biology 101. The above are all descriptions of stages of human development, just like infant, toddler, child, adolescent, adult.
Not really. The constitution was written by both Deists, who didn’t believe the words of the Bible were necessarily true, and Christians, who did. Laws were often based on customs and culture as opposed to biblical commands. But for the most part, the laws Christians could agree on and the laws everyone else could agree on were practically the same, and where they weren’t, people just weren’t aware of it. It wasn’t until Roe v. Wade that the schism really opened up.Our laws prior to 1973 were generally based on Christian principles we could agree on, especially those principles of life, death and protection of the innocent. The law of God is not made by humans, but by God only.
You are absolutely right. However, you will never be able to convince someone your arguments are correct unless you base them on principles that he agrees with. I know you will say that the protection of innocent human life is a principle that everyone can agree with, but that kind of uses definitions, rather than a deeper understanding of the biological process, to argue your point.And why not??? Free exercise of religion means that we need not check our beliefs at the door when we run for office or vote.
No, a brain dead person is not medically dead. Otherwise the church would have no problems with just burying them right there and then with functioning organ systems. That is precisely why the catagory of “brain dead” exists, otherwise one is just plain dead.
By “medically” I meant that doctors pronounce a person dead in the event of brain death. And I think Biggie posted a link regarding brain death that seems to support what I’ve said.In addition, why would there ever be an issue of removing life support for a person who was medically dead? Answer, Brain dead does not equal medically dead. A death certificate cannot be issued for a brain dead individual.
I guess my point was that, we can imagine that if medical technology were advanced enough, it could replace many parts of our body. Indeed it has, on occasion. But it could never replace our brains. It is our brains that encompass who we are.Nope. As has been pointe out who we are = our body (including brain) + our soul
25 weeks is the end of the second trimester. My argument was that a first-trimester fetus might not be considered a person. So when measurable brain activity begins, the fetus is twice as old as it would have been at the end of the first trimester. There is certainly brain activity, if by activity you mean growing and development. But as far as the brain actually functioning as a brain, it doesn’t appear to be there yet.Luis, regarding brain activity in post # 45. You begin with the concept of “measurable brain activity” and then make the conclusion that there isn’t any “brain activity” in the first trimester, or presumably based on the concept, prior to about 25 weeks.
Aren’t you comparing two different things - - measurable brain activity versus brain activity? Would not this be a problem for that type of analogy?
Second, and I am not sure about this, but I believe the brain activity argument is based upon a certain type of brain activity. Is it that such activity does not exist, or we cannot measure it? Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. In any event, it would seem like the most supportable conclusion is that brain activity is present but incapable of measurement.
Third, there was what I thought was a good/interesting article in First Things not too long ago, and it was available online, regarding how brain activity should be considered in this context. I only read it once, so my paraphrase may not be precise, but it was along the lines of brain activity is relevant only in so far as the brain is organizing the activities of the body, and this is why brain death- - i.e., the brain cannot control body functions, and they cease unless mechanically preserved - - is a useful criteria for an end of life decision. In this context, to the extent the zygote/blastocyst/embryo/fetus is self-organized and directing its own development, either before or after the presence of a ‘brain’, it is a person.
OK, I went and looked for the article.
It is the ability to function as a coordinated organism rather than merely as a group of living human cells which is the most important criteria in defining human life.
firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=485&var_recherche=brain+death I think is the link, and I guess its not too recent after all. If the link doesn’t work, it is by Maureen Condic, a professor of neurobiology and appeared in the May 2003 issue.
This is a good argument, and indeed it may convince some people. But it doesn’t change the fact that the defining part of who we are as a person, the brain, is not there yet.Does this make a difference in how you believe a pro-life argument could be presented from a non-religious viewpoint?
In the case of identical twins, the blastocyst divides in two, and each half grows into a separate twin. When, exactly, did each twin’s life begin?No, Luis. It does not follow. The life ends when brain activity ceases because the cessation marks the insupportability of the body as a whole, not because it is the brain. As you know, in the beginning, the body will continue to develop in its natural environment, thus requiring direct killing to stop the process.
At conception.In the case of identical twins, the blastocyst divides in two, and each half grows into a separate twin. When, exactly, did each twin’s life begin?