The bacon is strong in this thread....
Anywho...
I stumbled across an interesting debate underneath an article by ... err... I think it was a tweeted article by The New York Times about the "Heartbeat bill" which was recently signed into law in Georgia.
"The Georgia law, which would take effect in 2020, prohibits most abortions once doctors can discern a fetal heartbeat, a milestone that occurs before some women know they are pregnant. In practice, the limit on abortion in Georgia will now be six weeks of pregnancy, instead of 20 weeks. Exceptions are allowed to prevent death or serious harm to the woman, and in cases of rape or incest in which a police report has been filed."
Many comments on the article but one stood out where someone points out that if the heart is a sign of life, that organ donations should hold immediately because most of those patients still have a beating heart when they are being harvested. The heart takes second place when it comes to determing life, since it's the brain that is the primary detemination whether someone is dead or not. So, how can "life" start with a heartbeat when it doesn't end with it.
Someone countered that it was not the brain but the heart that determines whether a person is dead or alive, so I got curious and looked it up, and lo and behold commenter 1 is correct.
Brain beats heart -- in a manner of speaking...
Source: Brain death, Cardiac death and the dead donor rule by Robert M. Sade, M.D.
Codified in the law of every state by their adoption of the Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA) after its promulgation in 1981, here's how death is defined:
"An individual who has sustained either irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem, is dead. A determination of death must be made in accordance with accepted medical standards."
There is only one kind of death — when one is dead, one is dead — but death can be determined in the two different ways described in the law. A brain dead individual who is warm and pink with heart beating and lungs ventilating is just as dead, legally, as an individual whose body has turned cold after the heart has permanently stopped beating.
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So, it stands to reason that both brain and heart determine what is alive... as it does what is death, in which case 20 weeks is the limit, 24 at a max.
"...after six weeks of pregnancy because that is when a basic spinal cord and nervous system first develop, but it is not until week eight (six weeks post-fertilisation) that the first rudimentary brain activity – the kind that is observed in organisms as simple as insects – can be observed. The very beginnings of our higher brain structures only start to appear between weeks 12 and 16. Crucially, the co-ordinated brain activity required for consciousness does not occur until 24-25 weeks of pregnancy. We cannot say when consciousness first emerges, but it cannot rationally be called before the end of the second trimester at 24 weeks of pregnancy."
----
Also, if life is so precious to so many republcans... why are they not more inclined to up health care for kids and prevent so many school shootings... or is it pro-life until born.
Anywho...
I stumbled across an interesting debate underneath an article by ... err... I think it was a tweeted article by The New York Times about the "Heartbeat bill" which was recently signed into law in Georgia.
"The Georgia law, which would take effect in 2020, prohibits most abortions once doctors can discern a fetal heartbeat, a milestone that occurs before some women know they are pregnant. In practice, the limit on abortion in Georgia will now be six weeks of pregnancy, instead of 20 weeks. Exceptions are allowed to prevent death or serious harm to the woman, and in cases of rape or incest in which a police report has been filed."
Many comments on the article but one stood out where someone points out that if the heart is a sign of life, that organ donations should hold immediately because most of those patients still have a beating heart when they are being harvested. The heart takes second place when it comes to determing life, since it's the brain that is the primary detemination whether someone is dead or not. So, how can "life" start with a heartbeat when it doesn't end with it.
Someone countered that it was not the brain but the heart that determines whether a person is dead or alive, so I got curious and looked it up, and lo and behold commenter 1 is correct.
Brain beats heart -- in a manner of speaking...
Source: Brain death, Cardiac death and the dead donor rule by Robert M. Sade, M.D.
Codified in the law of every state by their adoption of the Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA) after its promulgation in 1981, here's how death is defined:
"An individual who has sustained either irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem, is dead. A determination of death must be made in accordance with accepted medical standards."
There is only one kind of death — when one is dead, one is dead — but death can be determined in the two different ways described in the law. A brain dead individual who is warm and pink with heart beating and lungs ventilating is just as dead, legally, as an individual whose body has turned cold after the heart has permanently stopped beating.
----
So, it stands to reason that both brain and heart determine what is alive... as it does what is death, in which case 20 weeks is the limit, 24 at a max.
"...after six weeks of pregnancy because that is when a basic spinal cord and nervous system first develop, but it is not until week eight (six weeks post-fertilisation) that the first rudimentary brain activity – the kind that is observed in organisms as simple as insects – can be observed. The very beginnings of our higher brain structures only start to appear between weeks 12 and 16. Crucially, the co-ordinated brain activity required for consciousness does not occur until 24-25 weeks of pregnancy. We cannot say when consciousness first emerges, but it cannot rationally be called before the end of the second trimester at 24 weeks of pregnancy."
----
Also, if life is so precious to so many republcans... why are they not more inclined to up health care for kids and prevent so many school shootings... or is it pro-life until born.
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