Are Autistics whom are Pro-Abortion hypocrits?

Post Reply New Topic

It was duplicated, how the heck do you think it made it into the Journal of the American Medical Association, they actually did have some standards when it came to academic integrity at least back then, which has gone downhill now.

How many times? And what level of acceptance did said article receive from contemporary peers? It sounds like a speculative hypothesis at best

Uh EEG readings are hardly a mere hypotheis, he wasn't speculating on the complexity of the readings, he was just interested in the fact there were brainwaves being recorded.

The speculation is found on LKL's and Orwell's side.

An EEG is not a hypothesis, it is part of a methodology. In any case...

What exactly was his hypothesis? Conclusions? Don't take this line of questioning the wrong way, if your source is worthy you shouldn't feel the need to get defensive about it. Also you didn't answer my question, what level of acceptance did his peers give his paper? Are there any reviews or criticisms?

The book and the NEJM article were cited earlier. Only the review of the book is an addition.

The Hamlin piece in JAMA was not original research. It was an opinion piece advocating the use of brain-death as another way of officially establishing that someone is 'dead.'

edit: wrt. duplicating EEG readings: EEGs are minimally invasive, and have been done since the Hamlin piece on severely premature infants. The younger they are, the longer the stretches of flatline or discontinuity on the EEGs.
Flatline EEGs are pretty significant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_death
quote:
...brain electrical activity can stop completely, or drop to such a low level as to be undetectable with most equipment. An EEG will therefore be flat, though this is sometimes also observed during deep anaesthesia or cardiac arrest. Although in the United States a flat EEG test is not required to certify death, it is considered to have confirmatory value.
In the UK they don't use EEGs b/c they require brainstem death as well as cortical death to pronounce braindeath.

This article gives a fairly simple explanation of the potential for artifact in EEGs (which is what EEG professionals now believe is what showed up in the Japanese tests). It also gives a brief description of the significance of flatline EEGs (if you read the whole thing, keep in mind that a cough reflex is not necessarily an indication of consciousness).
http://www.cityweekly.net/utah/article- ... -dead.html
another (oversimplified, but still explanatory for non-biologists) article on EEGs:
http://science.jrank.org/pages/2347/Ele ... m-EEG.html

A flat EEG, clearly, is not necessarily indicative of 'death,' but just as clearly it is indicative of an absence of cortical activity and an absence of normal mammalian brain function.

Would actually like to see the study, not what some blowhard making claims. Oh that's right, there probably wasn't any experiment done because they would have wound up in jail. Furthermore the article I used was more than simply an opinion article, further it seems he actually had no motive one way or the other concerning the EEG readings of the embryos, which is far better than you or your sources.

Furthermore, LKL as you probably know perfectly well, in order for an EEG to get accurate readings we would need live wires immersed in a liquid that arguably conducts electricity. Are we looking for brainwaves or trying to reinvent the electric chair...



That really does not disprove the fact there is brain function, the fact that the premie has flatlines is immaterial, someone having a near death situation may briefly flatline. Furthermore, the premie is outside the womb, not inside the womb which is would ordinarily be a better environment for development. The premie would be in a life or death situation because it is outside the womb too early, the child would be trying to cope with changes in temperature, breathing with immature lungs, etc., as you well know.

Fact of the matter is, brain waves are detectable long before you claim there is brain activity. Your dishonesty in attempting to claim first that they aren't really brainwaves and then next claiming there are flatlines all over the place using an example of a child that is in a life or death situation when you know perfectly well that the child in the womb would not be fighting for its life struggling to breathe, is dispicable. You have shown you are willing to try to come up with any excuse, any rationale no matter how implausible, to dismiss the fact that there is brain activity before the child even reaches the fetus stage. What you have been doing is highly unethical.

IIrc google books has some exerpts scanned.


"immersed"? "live"? You are incorrect. The wires are passive, and they are attached using pads or caps and gel. Adults have to have their heads shaved in a bunch of spots, but kids are pretty much bald already.




...Which sort of proves my point. Flatlines show up when there is a complete absence of normal brain function.



...which means that a born child will have more brain activity than an unborn one.



In the past, I have been careful to specify recognizably normal mammalian brain waves. There is neurological activity starting fairly early, but there is no evidence that it is anything more complex than random sparking or organizational signaling that helps the brain assemble itself. It is not coherent, normal mammalian brain waves - not sentience, much less sapience - until well into the 3rd trimester.



Honey, flatlines are not 'waves.' they certainly are not normal. They certainly indicate that there is no neurological activity happening when they occur. The fact that they are associated with near brain death in any organism other than a zef or a premature infant should give you a clue that the zef's brain is not fully functional.


You have shown that you are willing to pretend expertise in fields you know nothing about, and to posit that studies from a half a century ago are more valid than recent ones just because the former agree with you. What you have been doing in highly unethical.

A baby in the womb is also immersed in liquid. If you threw a toaster (that was plugged in) into the water when you were in a bathtub, what would happen...



Actually it disproves your point, cause the child in the womb is developing without any issues and thus wouldn't be flatlining or going into the equivalent of cardiac arrest... Seriously, are you even in the medical field like you claim, or is it just that you have no common sense.





A premie is usually fighting for its life because it isn't ready to handle the environment outside the womb. Its vitals could be all over the map. The child in the womb is not suffering from this issue so its brain activity could be a lot less erratic for that reason.



No, you claimed there wasn't brain activity and you are now acting like you never took that stance cause you got schooled by someone whom isn't a biologist. I am not going to speculate the reasons as to why there is brain activity, nor am I going to speculate on how complex the activity is, nor am I going to speculate on the reason behind said activity, cause all it would be is speculation. All I care about is the fact there is brain activity.



Well if the premie dies on you there would not be any brain activity, because we would be looking at a dead baby not a living one... The fact that you are seeing flatlining leads me to question the ethics of the researcher, because it looks like the premie is in danger of dieing on the spot.



I apparently know more than you do on the subject which is actually kind of scary. Seriously, the fact it is easy to find violations of medical ethics left and right that you are apparently okay with is alarming.

I know what IRB approval is LKL, I had to get IRB approval for a senior project simply because we were conducting a survey that involved humans. No ethical IRB board would approve any of the experiments you are suggesting. If a premie is honestly in the condition where it would need constant monitoring the doctor on call would blow a gasket if he/she found anyone hooking up the premie to equipment for study. In fact it is critical that the premie is kept in a sterile environment, not having liquid gel all over its head potentially getting into whatever IVs that the child is hooked up to.

Also, my sister was a premie, so I actually have some knowledge concerning this. In otherwords, your attempt at BS is not going to fly and I will continue to call you on it.

I wouldn't roll my eyes so frequently mang. You could get a lazy eye!

Honey, the wires are passive, and the studies (as I have repeatedly said) were done on premature infants.



Flatlines are normal for premature infants. Lack of brain activity is normal for a developing brain. They are not normal for a healthy, born mammal with a fully functioning brain. When you build something from scratch, it probably won't work completely until it's done. A premature infant (much less a fetus prior to viability) isn't done, and doesn't function like a 'done' infant does.
The studies I have seen generally removed data from infants that were not developmentally normal at one year of age.


I did get sloppy on this thread, when I contradicted you after you started throwing around your "brain waves at 40 days" claim again. In the past, on other threads, I have been careful to specify recognizably normal mammalian brain waves. We haven't gone into this specificity before.

If all you care about is 'brain activity,' then say 'brain activity.' Don't say 'brain waves,' because to most people the term 'brain waves' implies normal, recognizably mammalian brain waves without periods of flatlining. That does not show up until well into the 3rd trimester.
Personally, I don't care about "brain activity." Fish have "brain activity" at higher levels than a first trimester zef, and I whack them on the head without much mercy when I catch them. What I care about is when there is enough brain activity - enough normal brain waves - that there's a possibility of sentience or even sapience.



By your standards, human testing would never be done.
I assume you know what 'informed consent' is?
I assume you know that the gel involved is sterile?
I assume you know that even premies defecate and urinate, so keeping them clean isn't exactly a novel problem?
I've spent weeks jumping through hoops for a passive sound monitoring project on bats, so I know that it's a pain in the ass - likewise, I know that people who are professional researchers get better at jumping the hoops, and that it's worth it to them.


You think that observing a premie, presumably being a child yourself at the time, receiving the sugar-coated medical explanations that non-medical people get, makes you an expert on premies? Don't say BS, call it what it is: BS. Your claim to medical knowledge here is BS.

Oh really, and what was the condition of said Premies from a medical standpoint, cause it sounds like their vitals wouldn't be doing to well based on the information you provided.



So you admit there is brain activity then.



There's an understatement, again the source said there was brainwaves.



Actually, you can't make that statement, because in order to get an accurate reading to make that claim you would have to hook up the embryo while it is still in the womb. Otherwise you end up with the added insulation of the mother's skin, and everything else between the electrodes and the baby's skull.

From a research standpoint there are too many factors that would invalidate the observations on a premie such as the child's health for starters.



Define normal, cause why do we not simply kill people whom are in a coma then. Furthermore, you also can't make that claim for the same reason I pointed out earlier, in order to get a reading of a normally developing child in the womb you would have to hook the child up while it is still in the womb, and that quite frankly would never get IRB approval.



I am aware of what informed consent is, however a child cannot give informed consent. Furthermore, even if the parents give consent you are not allowed to do any research that puts the child's safety or psychological health in jeopardy. So don't give me the informed consent song and dance.



Still doesn't mean the doctor would want it in the child's blood stream, nor would the doctor want the IV's screwed up all in the name of medical research.



I am aware of that, that really has no bearing on the fact what you propose wouldn't be likely of getting IRB approval, because there are too many possibilities of something going wrong.



You think that was bad?!?!? That would be a cakewalk compared to getting approval on using children as research subjects.



I am referring to all the needles, IV's etc. They even had to but a needle in her scalp. I remember all the steps taken to make sure she wasn't exposed to pathogens. The idea of hooking a child up to an EEG for a medical experiment in that situation, is idiotic to say the least. One wrong move and you could tear out an IV, inflict serious bodily harm on the child etc. Granted the situation got better over time, that said, no doctor in their right mind would let anyone use their patient (particularly when it is a premie with health problems) as a guinea pig.

Three pages of irrelevancy.

I will just uncritically accept Inuyasha's claim that there is identifiable, systematic neural function at 40 days gestational age. I will even accept his claim to voluntary motor function at 48 days gestational age. Done.

Thank you, Inuyasha, for answering my question about abortion prior to 40 days.

I think we are agreed that contraception, ECP and abortion prior to 40 days are all acceptable practices from a legal perspective(whatever personal misgivings we might have about these). I think we can also agree that procuring abortion of a healthy, viable fetus is an unacceptable practice.

So, it seems we are down to a narrower issue, now: abortion during the 100 day window between 40 days gestational age and 140 days gestational age.

I don't see that there is any room for consensus on this question. Neither Inuyasha nor I can convince the other of the acceptability of our relative positions--but perhaps we can agree that this is a question that will not get resolved in this forum.

And perhaps we can do each other the respect of saying that while we do not agree with each other, we do recognize that we each have good reasons for believing as we do.

I agree with you.

I believe that there is at least one person here who will disagree with that statement. And that's why this thread is so loooooooooooooooooooooooooong...

21 pages too many
It may not have turned into such a shitstorm perhaps, if the title was not so blatantly trying to offend somebody

I wasn't out to offend anyone quite honestly, I just don't subscribe to the PC doctrine.

@ visagrunt

Sorry if I got short with you a few times, I was getting kinda annoyed with other individuals in the thread. You actually, were probably the most well reasoned individual representing the opposing side.

I will bring up one thing though: Do you want to err on the side of life of the child which may mean the mother has the inconveinence of carrying the child to term, or do you want to err on the side of the mother in which you are potentially killing an innocent child?

That's what this would largely boil down to.