Abortion/Consciousness/Life

[answer-is-42]

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I think it is a very slippery slope to define human life with consciousness. If human life requires consciousness to have human rights then do we lose those rights when we are unconcsciousness (be it under anesthesia, in a coma, or from brain damage)? If so then would we be ok with the termination of that life?

I've always found it impossible to define any criteria that is necessary for human life to be given human rights for these exact types of arguements, but if you have one I have not thought of please let me know.

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If in your mind future expectation of person-hood doesn't grant a being moral protection....then you should be okay with killing a perfectly healthy human being under general anesthesia. The moment a human is under general anesthesia...they are simply a piece of meat.....there is no person there....so it should be "okay" to kill that being....right?

You keep saying this, which is kinda amazing, because it demonstrates just how much you will not learn about how the brain and consciousness works, even when you're corrected on it.

Even unconscious, the human brain still works. The autonomic processes that keep the body alive, the beating heart and breathing lungs and so on, continue to function, which should be a hint to you that there's still something going on in there. The subconscious, just as much a part of the mind as anything else, still functions. The person's longterm memory still functions, as does whatever parts of the brain govern personality.

What you're doing, and at this point I'd have to say it's willfully because you've been told this before, is equivocating the expression of consciousness, with consciousness itself. Even under anesthesia, the person is still bound up in their headmeats, still stored in the brain even if dormant. The mind is still in there, it's just not able to do all the things it can at normal functionality at the moment.

You can make all the fiat assertions you like about future personhood, but the medical community would disagree with you; they know that there's a fundamental difference between a sleeping person and a brain damaged one that has nothing to do with abstract potential, defined with completely arbitrary dividing lines by the random, wild assertions of some guy on the internet. Your consciousness is your brain, and when it's unconscious it's still within normal operating parameters. When it's damaged- or missing in the case of the fetus- then it's not. That is when there's nobody at home. Future personhood doesn't come into it at all; in the former case nobody is answering the door, and in the middle case the occupant has vacated the premises, and in the latter case the house isn't even built yet.

I'm ACTUALLY AN MD so let me clear up some confusion. First you have tried to confused autonomic nervous system with high order function. It is unfortunately not uncommon for all higher order activity to be destroyed, yet the autonomic system is intact (breathing in particular - the heart has it's own automaticity that is not intrinisically dependent on the autonomics). Next, our understanding of general anesthesia is incomplete (it truely is) but it is NOT the same as sleeping - most if not all higher order function are or can be shut down with certain anesthestics. therefore the question is legit - is the presense of consciousness required to be considered human or have human rights? If it is not then this cannot be extrapolated back to justify why a fetus does not have human rights. This does not mean that abortion is intrisinically right or wrong, only the fallicy of defining a charastic that is required for human rights.