Fetuses may be able to distinguish between languages

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It’s not really news. I read something about this (or similar research) in Music, The Brain, And Ecstasy, a book by Robert Jourdain, published 20 years ago. Still, it’s good to see it again.
 
Neurologists have also started finding ways to communicate with patients previously believed to be in a vegetative state. It has to do with asking the patient to think about something (such as imagining clenching their muscles) for “yes” and to think about something that would light up a different part of the brain for “no.” They’ve used double-blind questions to show the patients can communicate. (The families give the answers to questions on a questionaire, but the researchers doing the testing do not know what the correct answers are for any given patient that they’re testing.)

Patients asked whether they would like to keep living answer in the affirmative. That will complicate the question of pulling the plug.

Just to clarify: This did not work with every patient tested, but only about (I think) 10-15% of them.
 
randomuser said:
All the more reason to make delivery expenses more accessible and affordable. It’s easy to be “pro-life” on someone else’s dime. Where’s the “free delivery” option in the new healthcare bill?
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Would the abortion-on-demand lobby agree to a ban on abortion if the cost of having a baby was $0.00?

No, of course they wouldn’t.

If an unborn baby can feel pain and detect nuances in human language surely these facts outweigh such trivial issues as “free delivery”.
 
Lion_IRC said:
Would the abortion-on-demand lobby agree to a ban on abortion if the cost of having a baby was $0.00?

No, of course they wouldn’t.
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Maybe but I’m sure the 49% of births paid for by Medicaid are appreciative.
 
randomuser said:
All the more reason to make delivery expenses more accessible and affordable. It’s easy to be “pro-life” on someone else’s dime. Where’s the “free delivery” option in the new healthcare bill?
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So you want to hold the lives of unborn babies hostage to the government’s paying for everyone’s birth expenses, when they already pay for almost half the births now?
 
St_Francis said:
So you want to hold the lives of unborn babies hostage to the government’s paying for everyone’s birth expenses, when they already pay for almost half the births now?
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I want us all to share in the expense of deliveries so that we have a more consistent Culture of Life. Are you suggesting that we hold the unborn babies’ mommies and daddies “hostage” (your term) because the state has no compelling interest in helping the babies be born? The abortion-on-demand lobby undoubtedly loves that scenario.
 
randomuser said:
I want us all to share in the expense of deliveries so that we have a more consistent Culture of Life. Are you suggesting that we hold the unborn babies’ mommies and daddies “hostage” (your term) because the state has no compelling interest in helping the babies be born? The abortion-on-demand lobby undoubtedly loves that scenario.
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No, my point is that you bring this up continually. We pay the expenses for almost half the babies born here; the babies for whom we do not pay have parents who pay in alternative ways which they apparently can afford.
 
St_Francis said:
We pay the expenses for almost half the babies born here; the babies for whom we do not pay have parents who pay in alternative ways which they apparently can afford.
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Maybe they can “afford” it if they borrow money but why have to start a family immediately in debt? Does the average mother even with a modest income save up $50,000 in 9 months before birth? (A C-section can cost that much. parents.com/blogs/everything-pregnancy/2013/07/01/must-read/labor-delivery-costs-hospital-bill/)
 
EasterJoy said:
Neurologists have also started finding ways to communicate with patients previously believed to be in a vegetative state. It has to do with asking the patient to think about something (such as imagining clenching their muscles) for “yes” and to think about something that would light up a different part of the brain for “no.” They’ve used double-blind questions to show the patients can communicate. (The families give the answers to questions on a questionaire, but the researchers doing the testing do not know what the correct answers are for any given patient that they’re testing.)

Patients asked whether they would like to keep living answer in the affirmative. That will complicate the question of pulling the plug.

Just to clarify: This did not work with every patient tested, but only about (I think) 10-15% of them.
Click to expand...
That is really cool. One of the most chilling stories I read was about a man who was in a comma from which no one expected him to wake up. 12yrs later he did, and said he could understand everything going on around him, people talking to him, etc, he just couldn’t do anything. He coped by just blanking out for long periods. It sounded to me like an Edgar Allen Poe horror story.
 
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