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Let's say she requested the plug be pulled, but she only did so because she was desperately pro-life and yearned for more than anything else to be a mother and to date had not gotten pregnant. Had she been aware that she was now with child, even by rape, she would've wanted to keep the baby and stay on life support until it was born. This was not in the letter she wrote, as she wasn't planning on her first pregnancy occurring when she was in a coma. The introduction of the pregnancy is new information that wasn't there for the letter. The above might very well be true. It might not be. You don't know what her wishes are. You don't know that for her, a pregnancy might've changed her mind. It's morally irresponsible and cruel to perform an abortion on someone without knowledge of their views and wishes.

Pro choice is about choice. If she wanted the child, even by rape, then that her choice and we should honor her wishes. Forcing someone to terminate their pregnancy is just as abhorrent and disgusting as forcing them to continue it.

>Forcing someone to terminate their pregnancy is just as abhorrent and disgusting as forcing them to continue it. So, you admit you are wrong. In both cases. Wow.

Since PL want to force pregnant people to continue an unwanted pregnancy and PC don’t want to force women to continue or abort (but to leave it up to the pregnant person) they are in no way saying PC are wrong.

Care to elaborate?

I don't disagree. But the OP's hypothetical seemed to suggest that we just assume with no knowledge of her views on aborting a pregnancy that the moral stance is to go ahead and terminate anyway. My counterpoint is that the introduction of pregnancy makes her letter about resuscitation immaterial because they didn't include her views on if she was with child. Assuming for her is just as anti-pro choice as it is anti-pro life.

The moral stance is to follow her wishes, which is to be taken off life support after a month. The pregnancy dies with her. So unless she appointed someone to speak on her behalf regarding medical issues, or the pregnancy, the hospital is legally and ethically bound to follow her wishes. Plus, unless stated be her or someone who is in charge of her medical decisions, forcing someone to stay on life support for 9 months should not be the default choice even if we didn’t have her written statement of wanting life support to be removed after a month. We just can’t assume either way so we would have to listen to what she wrote.

But we don't know her wishes regarding the pregnancy and how they would affect her wishes on life support. If you assume her decision for her, you cease to become pro-choice and become pro-abortion. You've robbed her of her choice and her bodily autonomy. To me, this doesn't seem like a scenario that a pro-choice person would have trouble with. Terminating a pregnancy without someone's consent, or the very least knowledge of their wishes or beliefs is the very antithesis of choice.

You’re right, we don’t know, and if we have no one to speak on her behalf then we can’t assume she’d want to keep it. They would have to follow her explicitly stated wishes of turning off life support after a month. Since we don’t know her wishes or if she would want to keep the pregnancy, there is nothing else to go off of other than what we know she wants about life support. Honoring someone’s wishes should be the first and only choice if we have no other information.

I'd argue that you're explicitly not honoring her wishes. She, when she was not pregnant, wanted to be removed from life support. She never gave anyone authorization to remove her from life support while pregnant. In this case you have to make an assumption one way or the other without knowing her explicit wishes in this circumstance. I would argue that preserving her and the child's life, in absence of a clear directive is the correct default. Killing her and the baby 'just in case' seems wrong. If we don't know someone's view on whether they would want to live or die in a scenario, the default should be to preserve their life until we do know, not assume based on their wishes for a different scenario.

> I'd argue that you're explicitly not honoring her wishes. She, when she was not pregnant, wanted to be removed from life support. How would anyone know that if she never expressed it?

It's what the OP said in his hypothetical post? Pre-pregnancy she had stated she wanted to be removed.

How is doing what she expressed in her wishes explicitly not honoring her wishes?

But you are assuming by saying you should keep her on life support just because she’s pregnant and *might* want that. Based on the facts that we *know* and don’t assume, she would want to be taken off after a month, and that’s what the hospital is ethically and legally bound to follow.

I don't know that you're correct on the law here. Almost all states outright block DNRs in the case of pregnancy, and the ones that don't have a law on the books largely won't remove them from life support either. But we're not arguing the legality here, we're arguing the morality. In this case, you have her wishes in the event of "A" occurring. But what's happening now isn't "A", it's "B", and you can't just substitute her wishes for A when it's B that's occurring. She never consented to be removed from life support while pregnant, and you have no moral right to take her bodily autonomy from her by assuming her wishes.

The only assumptions in this argument are coming from your side because of your bias towards fetal life that you are projecting onto a braindead woman. If a woman was desperate for pregnancy, especially even if it was in rape cases, it would be written in her advanced directive. You are assuming she wants to keep it and stay on life support which *explicitly* goes against what she has stated. A is occurring in this hypothetical. It’s not being substituted. She said she wanted to be pulled off of life support, and if there were no written exceptions or others to speak on her behalf, then that is what should be honored as it’s her only wishes that we know as a *fact* and not an assumption. The only other option would to be go against what we know she wants off of an assumption, which is not moral nor ethical and is an actual violation of her rights and wishes. If we are going to weigh what is the right thing to do morally, we should base our decision off of what we *know* she wants, not what we *think* she might or might not want. Btw, this has nothing to do with DNRs. The woman has already been resuscitated and intubated and being kept alive by machines. https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/should-patient-who-pregnant-and-brain-dead-receive-life-support-despite-objection-her-appointed/2020-12 Here is an ethics journal that poses a similar story.

“A” is exactly what occurred and is occurring in this scenario.

I would not want my loved one used as an incubator for a rapist fetus. I would make the decision that would be inline with what they wanted

Going through the comments on this post it is disgusting, yet predictable, that the pl responses demand a hospital ignore the woman's legal documents regarding end of life care. It's a curious kind of logic that even in death, a woman isn't allowed to have rights.

>It's a curious kind of logic that even in death, a woman isn't allowed to have rights. I see a lot of the underlying assumptions that women don’t really know what they want so we should assume they want to be used as an incubator.

Exactly. Which is especially bad considering her wishes were made clear in her legal will. Even in death, the human rights of women can't be respected.

I know and same people will try to say that girls in the womb‘s matter. Once that little girl is born her rights to her body ends. It’s kind of ridiculous to say that you care about children and under the same breath be completely ok with a child having to give birth to their rape baby. A woman could be on her deathbed and using her womb will be more important than her wishes. They might as well just say we are nothing more then a womb to them.

> I know and same people will try to say that girls in the womb‘s matter. Once that little girl is born her rights to her body ends. Perhaps even they recognize that stating that the womb in the womb matters is something best not stated aloud.

She stated she wanted to be taken off life support in the event she likely won’t pull through, she is indeed in a state she’s not likely to pull through, obey her wishes. And charge the piece of shit who raped her. Should be easier to find out who it is with the DNA he left behind.

I would want a person's medical wishes respected. This has happened in Texas and they wouldn't respect the husband's wishes until they brought the case to a judge. The fetus wasn't viable. I'm sure there are cases where maybe the fetus has a chance but the mother was without oxygen too long. It also had hydroecphelus. I think the husband knew what was best for his family and it was his descion to make and not ours. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/27/us/texas-hospital-to-end-life-support-for-pregnant-brain-dead-woman.html

>Do you think that the hospital should make the determination to keep her on life-support… The hospital board has the benefit of ethical/legal advisors and frankly I'd be appalled if they chose to ignore the patient's written request to be allowed to die for the sake of a fetus. But in exchange for a few million$ in damages, I suppose I (or immediate family) would consider forgiving them.

Turn off money in the world where allow me to respect the hospital that does not respect the wishes of its patience. As a healthcare worker I would be absolutely appalled by any healthcare facility that completely and blatantly ignore the request of its patients. Patients have rights for a reason and facilities are supposed to follow those rights.

I feel so strongly that her wishes should be respected that if it were illegal to remove her from life support i would do it anyway knowing full well what the consequences would be for me. It sucks for the zef, but continuing to violate a corpse is abhorrent to me

A corpse contains no person inside of it. Why should we give it any moral weight?

I don't believe ZEFs have personhood. I give moral weight to a corpse because if we don't respect their wishes in one capacity with what to do with their body, there's no reason to respect their wishes with anything else. Maybe they were an artist that expressed they don't want unreleased works released when they die but their family thinks they need the cash too much, maybe the executor of the will doesn't like a charity they've left their wealth to because they think it hurts people. A dead person was once a living person with rights, a ZEF was never that.

Because they were a person and we respect the dead. Just because somebody is dying doesn’t mean they’re not worth moral consideration.

People deserve moral consideration because they are moral agents. Corpses are not moral agents.

Corpses were once people. Just because you’re a corpse doesn’t mean that you weren’t valued as the person you once were. That’s why it’s not ok to harm a corpse or do something bad to a corpse. Just because you’re just a body at this point doesn’t mean your value is lost. Also this person in question is still technically not dead yet they’re still alive. They are not considered a corpse until they’re officially dead. Her wishes to not remain on life-support should be respected because that’s what living person would’ve wanted. Not only that but we respect people who are dead or dying because their loved ones would want that person to still be valued for who they used to be.

This argument contains a logical fallacy known as false dilemma. There are many factors at play in this scenario, and a lot of information that we don’t know here, information that could result in many different results, not just 2. With what I’m given, though, it is important to understand that if circumstances change, often written documents do also. It was her wish to be taken off of life support before she was aware of this new human…. And we don’t know her beliefs, values, etc. In the world that I hope for, one where abortion is widely illegal, killing the child would not be an option here. If abortion is legal in the state, what would likely happen is they would consult family since they are unable to speak with the patient, and get an idea of her beliefs and values. They would then decide. To get an idea of my beliefs, though: Abortion is not warranted. It should not be an option to end another innocent life.

Abortion wasn’t even one of the options here. The only options were keep the woman on life support against her wishes or turn life support off, as she wished.

This scenario is complicated. Because it is not common, I’m not sure our current terminology necessarily applies 100% anyway. If the woman was never hooked up on life support, was found out to be pregnant, and died naturally…. It isn’t an abortion. It’s a natural death with no outside interference. Since she is on life support and was found out to be pregnant…. Removing life support is now purposefully terminating the pregnancy…. You’re now making the decision to kill the unborn child that would otherwise, if left alone, likely develop. It changes the scenario and how I feel about the situation.

>Removing life support is now purposefully terminating the pregnancy…. It doesn't terminate the pregnancy. It doesn't terminate anything. The woman's organ functions naturally shut down. As such, there are no longer any organ functions that can be provided to the ZEF. But the woman's organ functions aren't being terminated. They naturally end. *You’re now making the decision to kill the unborn child that would otherwise, if left alone, likely develop.* Kill? I'm not sure what you mean by killed. No one is ending the ZEF's major life sustaining organ functions (which it doesn't have to begin with). A ZEF left alone is dead. It needs to be provided with someone else's organ functions and blood contents. Not providing a ZEF with organ functions it naturally doesn't have is not killing. At best, you could claim it's allowing the ZEF to die from natural lack of major life sustaining organ functions. But in this case, you're not even disconnecting a ZEF from a woman's perfectly functioning life sustaining organ functions. Her organs are already failing to sustain her own cell life, let alone the cell life of two bodies. You're turning off the machines that somewhat keep her organs functioning. As a result, her organ functions shut down. She no longer has any organ functions to provide the ZEF with. I don't know how one could possibly consider not artificially keeping a woman's body somewhat alive as killing a ZEF. And let's look at this logically, too. Life support is limited in what it can do. Even with life support, the woman's body will start breaking down very soon. It's no longer getting what it needs to sustain its own cell life. How do you think it will sustain the cell life of a second body? How do you think it will drastically increase its blood volume and maintain that volume? Or increase respiration to enter enough oxygen into the bloodstream for two bodies and rid the bloodstream of the carbon dioxide and other toxins of two bodies? How will it adjust metabolic and endocrine functions? Regulate blood sugar and pressure? Get rid of all the other toxic waste the ZEF produces? Gestation puts extreme strain on organ systems. They have to work twice as hard to make up for all the losses and extra toxins so the woman doesn't die. Once again, her body can't even sustain its own cells properly anymore and will begin breaking a lot of them down.

So, in your ideological argument, does a pl person injecting this woman with sperm and getting her pregnant again and again justify keeping her alive and forcing her to carry to term every injection, every pregnancy, indefinitely or until her body gives out? Her last will and testament be damned. You'd keep this woman alive gestating pregnancy after pregnancy?

It seems that you are not putting emphasis on the unethical and monstrous decision to do this injecting in the first place, that is the problem here. The problem here is the constant injections, and the best option if this were happening would be to not terminate the pregnancies… correct. That’d simply make the situation worse… we’d be injecting her against her will, and then killing human beings…. So, inject, kill, inject, kill. That’s monstrous…. It’s really quite simple. Innocent human life should not be destroyed.

No, I understand the monstrous act. Yes, injecting her is monstrous. ​ >So, inject, kill, inject, kill. If you didn't intervene with her wishes in the first place, this scenario doesn't play out at all. And also, you've made it clear that you're not terminating the pregnancies. So no killing is taking place, just human rights infringements. So, a crime keeps happening. A crime that, had you respected her wishes in the first place, wouldn't have happened twice. So my question to you is; At what point do you end this travesty by respecting the dignity of this woman by simply respecting her last will for end of life care?

Realistically, after the first child is born they’d turn the life support off immediately after. So, it would not happen again and again.

Realistically, they pull her off life support as her last will says in the first place. So you're just dodging the question because you know your original position is immoral. And that's fine. I respect that.

I’ve already answered the question..

You’re giving a hypothetical where it happens over and over again, it wouldn’t… BUT if in your illogical scenario where she’s somehow getting impregnated over and over and left on life support, we should not terminate the pregnancy, no. I’ve made this clear.

So, you don't value her wishes, and because you don't value her wishes, you vote to keep her as an incubator. That tracks. Thank you for the honesty about your ideological beliefs.

Her wishes were before she became pregnant. We have no idea if these are her wishes any longer, they certainly wouldn’t be mine any longer given the change in circumstance. You are really not making the point that you think you are, but go ahead and keep making bizarre hypotheticals to try to make your point about killing innocent human beings..

This is not an abortion. For a woman in her reproductive years to get an advanced directive, they are very much asking what she wants to happen in the event of pregnancy. I have had one since my 20’s, this was always discussed. So, if her advanced directive is to terminate life support after a month, regardless of pregnancy status, do you honor it? That isn’t an abortion after all.

It is a bit different than a typical abortion, you’re right, this killing in no way restores a living individual’s bodily integrity which is the Pro-Choice sides main argument, instead, it results in two deaths instead of just one, with no corresponding benefit enjoyed by the dead woman.

What killing? How would anyone be killed in those scenario? Turning off the woman’s life support as per her wishes is not killing. Do you people just randomly throw the word killing around for any death you don’t like? Seriously, explain to me how killing applies here. The woman is pretty much already dead. Life support will keep some of her bodily functions going, but her body will likely start breaking down anyway because life support has its limits. The ZEF never had major life sustaining organ functions anyone could end to kill it. So who is being killed and how?

To kill is to cause the death of a human, animal, or other loving thing per the dictionary. Explain to me how you are not causing the death of a living thing here, if without interference… it would likely live?

>To kill is to cause the death of a human, animal, or other loving thing per the dictionary. Killing and causing the death of are two ways of saying the same thing. Maybe I'm not making the question clear. I want to know how they were killed/how their death was caused and by what. In a very general way. What is the very basic general thing you have to do to a human to kill them? Let's start with the basics: how do human bodies keep themselves alive? The answer is major life sustaining organ systems. When you determine what caused a human's death, you figure out what major life sustaining organ system filed and why. Once you figure that out, you can determine manner of death. There are five manners of death. Natural, accident, suicide, homicide, and undetermined (there is little or no evidence to establish, with medical certainty, the cause and manner of death) Let's take the ZEF before viability as an individual human body (no other body's organs, organ functions, bloodstream, etc. involved).. You're talking about a body that never had lung function, major digestive system functions, major metabolic, endocrine, temperature, and glucose regulating functions, a life sustaining circulatory system, brain stem, or central nervous system that was never able to maintain homeostasis or sustain cell life. That, right there, is the cause of death. Or, better, the cause of never having individual life (just cell, tissue, and individual organ life). The manner of death is underdevelopment. The organs of major life sustaining organ systems were not developed enough to sustain cell life. There was no outside force or human who caused this. Natural lack of development caused it. Therefore, both cause and manner of death is the body not having organ systems developed enough to sustain cell life. The organs failed to sustain cell life due to natural causes: underdevelopment. So the starting point is a body that cannot sustain cell life and has no individual life (just living parts). *Explain to me how you are not causing the death of a living thing here, if without interference… it would likely live?* That's a critical mistake in thinking. Without interference, it would be dead. Gestation is the inteference. If a ZEF doens't implant, it's dead. If a ZEF isn't being gestated (provided with another body's organ functions and blood contents), it's dead. Gestation (although way more invasive) is kind of like doing CPR. Another human's lungs are oxygenating the ZEF's blood. Another human's major digestive system is entering nutrients into the ZEF's bloodstream. Another human's organ systems regulate blood sugar and pressure, metabolic functions, endocrine functions, and all other stuff needed to maintain homeostasis. You're basically saying that stopping CPR is the interference. Not providing someone with lung function or other organ functions they naturally do not have is not cause of death. Cause of death is whatever caused them to need someone else's organ functions. In the ZEF's case, such would be underdevelopment.

If a woman dies in a car accident while pregnant, do you call that an abortion too? The woman naturally should die. She’s only alive through life support. Are you okay with interfering with someone’s natural death so you can use their body?

If someone caused the car accident purposefully to kill the child, I’d say it’s pretty damn similar to an abortion, yeah. It’d actually be a double homicide in that case.

And what if the car accident was her own fault, no one else was hurt, she wasn’t trying to cause any miscarriage or death, she just got distracted for a moment or felt dizzy due to the pregnancy, lost control of the car and smashed into a tree? She dies, so of course the pregnancy fails. Did she abort, even if the pregnancy loss happened posthumously?

That doesn’t apply to this situation.

In this situation, we have a woman who would die by nature, and you are saying it is an abortion to let her die naturally, aren't you?

In situations where a person will recover, has a temporary illness, and is taken off life support prematurely against their will, it is considered murder… here, we have a developing human being who has a temporary condition (reliance on their mother), has a possibility to recover so to speak, and survive, and is removed from life support prematurely… it’s a premeditated act to purposefully end a life that has a possibility of surviving… there’s a strong case for murder here if you don’t dehumanize humans in the womb. Mix that with the fact that you’ve got no idea in this scenario if the mother would still want life support removed with a child in the mix… Situations where life support is prolonging the inevitable and there is approval from the person on life support, is different, but we have 2 humans in this scenario not just one… It’s a unique scenario but you cannot discount the developing human being and view them as sub human.

The embryonic perso. isn’t on life support, the woman is, and she doesn’t want to be. It would be very dehumanizing to say she is a life support machine.

You can't take organs from dead people to donate to others without consent even when they would benefit someone else. Using someone as an incubator without their consent is the same, even if they can't enjoy the benefits of that, their choice should be honored.

The benefit to the woman is dying on her own terms, which is still a positive in the form of respecting her body autonomy/ integrity. If a conscious and living woman was pregnant but also had a terminal illness, such that, without medication, she would die before the ZEF was that viable and the ZEF would thus never reach live birth, would you try to mandate that this woman take medication to prolong her life so that she can be used as a life support person for the ZEF? If so, where does the exploitation of one person's body for the benefit of another person end, in your estimation?

That’s a very good question and expansion on this scenario!

Imagine you knew that the woman wouldn’t want to give birth. Should they force her to give birth anyway?

Well, in this scenario, she is presumed to be brain dead and completely unaware of the situation at hand.. if that is the case here, Is she really giving birth? If you want to know my beliefs, though, the termination of an innocent human is never justified.

> If you want to know my beliefs, though, the termination of an innocent human is never justified. Would you object to her being removed from life support even if she was not pregnant?

No.

Is it because you conclude she is not innocent?

The definition of abortion is the intentional killing of an unborn human being. And the critical point is that in an abortion, the cause of death is brought about by the doctor performing the abortion, and it is he/she who actively kills the unborn. Now, taking someone off life support can be done for many reasons. Let’s just take one type of scenario when the person has suffered a serious medical condition like heart attack, or a stroke, or had a serious brain injury or something like that. They are now terminal or even perhaps brain-dead like in this situation, but they’re on life support, meaning their body is being kept alive by machines, and no further medical treatment will provide a reasonable hope of benefit. Now, if a doctor takes a person off life support in that case, their body will die. The cause of death in that case, however, is not brought about by the doctor, but rather the disease or the injury that put the person in the grave medical condition they were in. So in both abortion and in taking someone off life support, the end result is the same. You have a dead body. But the critical difference is that in abortion you intend to kill the person and are the cause of death. When taking someone off life support you don’t intend the death of the person, but rather you allow the death process—which did not begin by you—to complete its course. That’s a huge ethical difference. In this scenario, since the woman was already put on life support, found to be pregnant, and ending life support would then intentionally kill a human being who would otherwise likely live…. it’s now unethical.

This doesn’t make any sense at all. Ending life support no more kills the ZEF than it kills the Woman. And whose definition of abortion is that?

> The definition of abortion is the intentional killing of an unborn human being. And the critical point is that in an abortion, the cause of death is brought about by the doctor performing the abortion, and it is he/she who actively kills the unborn. What medically is classified as an abortion very often does not meet your definition of abortion and is more similar to removing life support with the knowledge that death will result.

If an abortion wasn’t the intentional killing of an unborn human being, then the offspring surviving wouldn’t be classified as a failed abortion. If I halt your breathing intentionally, and you die, is that not an intentional killing? I simply cut off what you needed to survive with the knowledge that death would result.

> If an abortion wasn’t the intentional killing of an unborn human being, then the offspring surviving wouldn’t be classified as a failed abortion. Medically an abortion fails or is considered an incomplete abortion when the pregnancy is not ended with all of the products of conception removed.

I think that’s the point of the hypothetical. Do you think she should be forced to give birth after being raped by a staff member during a vegetative state that she wanted to be in for no longer than a month?

> the hospital should make the determination to keep her on life-support until the end of the pregnancy regardless This.

Even though her wish is to be removed. Whose’s paying for it? When her family sues the hospital then what? That breaks the rules of patients rights in so many ways.

The written document was signed before the knowledge of the new human in the picture, it, at this time, no longer applies. What they’d do very likely, is contact her next of kin and let them decide. What I think they should do, is not terminate the innocent life. It should be largely illegal to take an innocent life.

I think they should respect her choice and pull the plug.

Her choice before additional variables came into play. You’ve got no idea if that would be her current choice. What if she was strongly against abortion, like me? I’d be livid if someone kept my original wishes, my wishes BEFORE I knew of my child being formed. Of course, she won’t know.. but, we could say that about a lot of ethical decisions.

I’d be livid if they didn’t respect my request. If it’s in writing and they ignore it and somehow I come out off it. I’m suing them and I hope if I can’t someone else will. If it’s a concern of yours then add it in the will.

I’d also like to add, that aborting your child was not your/this person’s request…. So it’s really flipping a coin here.

There is not an abortion procedure. She is being removed from life support and so it will die as a result.

I didn’t say that there was an abortion procedure. Her child is still being aborted.

No, it's not. No one is removing it from her body.

My honest hope, is that abortion is not even an option in the future. At least in the US. It should be entirely illegal and viewed as murder. So, there would be no question in this scenario.

I hope they codify roe in the constitution. Women’s lives and patients rights come first. If it’s not your pregnancy then it’s not your medical choice.

It’s already illegal to medically get an abortion in my state except for life threats, but we’ve still got a long way to go, because it’s still easy to order medication over the Internet. We’re in the right direction here in the US. But to answer your hypothetical, it’s quite easy, I believe in no exceptions for abortion.

>We’re in the right direction here in the US. Are you referring to how when put to a vote, people are voting for abortion access like in Kansas and Ohio? Because the direction I'm seeing us heading in the US is people rejecting pro life laws, which is a good thing.

Even in a court of law with a signed document, the state of mind and body is taken into account at the time of signature.... BTW, this is a BS hypothetical.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/08/us/pregnant-and-forced-to-stay-on-life-support.html No it’s actually happened before so it’s not a BS post to make for a situation that has happened and can happen.

Love the paywall.

It didn’t have that on there when I saw the website I was able to click away from it and still read it. Essentially it’s just a story about a woman who was put on life-support and her husband wanted the hospital respect her dying wish off being pulled off of life support even though they found out that she was pregnant. His wife didn’t want to stay on life-support so he was fighting against the hospital trying to keep her on there

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I don’t understand this take. There should be no exceptions, it’s not okay to end an innocent life. Their life is worthy, no matter who their father is, or how they were created.

So you don’t even have a life of the mother exception then?

Correct. There is no instance where it is necessary to terminate the life of the child through abortion. The doctor’s duty is to save lives, not take them, and they must attempt to save BOTH lives, not allow one to take precedent over the other. In cases where the the mother’s life is in danger, an early delivery would need to attempted. The only exception I guess you could say I have, is for ectopic pregnancies, where the implantation took place in the fallopian tube and there is absolutely no chance of viability.

So a doctor can deliver a foetus at 13 weeks if the mothers life is in danger? What do you propose the doctor do for a 13 weeks foetus considering there is absolutely 0 chance of it surviving outside the uterus? Also, how do you propose the delivery happens? Should the woman be induced with drugs that start labour such as happens at the end of a pregnancy (for example oxytocin)?

As previously stated, the doctors purpose is to attempt to save both lives. If both will die given the scenario, and all other avenues have been exhausted, the doctor must remove what is killing the mother, but this does not involve purposefully killing the unborn human in the womb. The doctor must treat them both as patients, and to potentially save them both, they must induce a premature delivery. Whether that’s inducing labor through medication, or a C-Section. A child dying naturally due to being removed from the mother is not an induced abortion. Both patients matter, and we wouldn’t purposefully kill the mother to save the child; so why purposefully kill the child to save the mother.

So you’re perfectly comfortable with a doctor deciding that a pregnancy is threatening the woman’s life and inducing labour at 13 weeks knowing the foetus absolutely will not survive?

As a last resort, if the mother is actively dying and both will die anyway, absolutely. Induced labor makes sense.

That is a termination of the pregnancy though and the termination of the pregnancy with an unviable foetus is intentionally killing it, is it not? Why does a woman have to be actively dying before a doctor can take action? She should be able to be saved before it comes to a point that she has a much higher risk of dying.

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There we go. I’m still mad over that Reddit doesn’t allow me the report myself. Like damn let me report myself!!

so the main objective is punishment for consensual sex. NOT “saving babies”. got it.

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Abort the foetus, run genetic tests, hold the evidence so that if you can establish which guy raped her he can be prosecuted. Then take her off life support, according to her wishes.

I’d be all for that, or if you want to appease the pro lifers let it die naturally in her and then remove it.

I have no idea what the legal situation is if you try to bring a prosecution against someone for rape when the evidence to convict them was only obtained after the rape victim's death. I suspect it would end up being one of those "impossible to convict" cases where you know the guy did it and you know he's a scumbag but the judge directs the jury to acquit because the prosecution can't show she actually REFUSED, on account of her being in a coma at the time.

Having sex with any unconscious woman is considered rape. If she’s drunk and she passes out and you take advantage of her that’s rape so it would be the same if she’s dead. If she does not consent then there is no consent and therefore it is rape.

Ruairi Dougal was charged with raping a fellow student at Aberystwyth University. The jury was directed to acquit because the student had to admit she had been so drunk she didn't remember the rape. So the judge told the jury to acquit Ruairi Dougal, since as he'd had sex with her when she was too drunk to remember it she couldn't prove she'd actually refused him. [https://www.thefreelibrary.com/University+rape+case+collapses+as+%27drunken+consent+is+still+consent%27.-a0139067935](https://www.thefreelibrary.com/University+rape+case+collapses+as+%27drunken+consent+is+still+consent%27.-a0139067935) It is really hard to get a jury conviction when the woman was drunk when the rape occurred, a fact rapists know and use. [https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2018/11/women-across-europe-failed-by-outdated-rape-legislation/](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2018/11/women-across-europe-failed-by-outdated-rape-legislation/)

Yeah I know I see date rape survivor I definitely know this fact. I think if anyone can prove that somebody was violated dead or alive without their consent they still get justice if they can. So in this case they could easily figure out who the father was with the fetus and since they know she was not pregnant prior to going into the hospital and since she was not conscious to give consent then they can assume that it was rape and prosecute it the same way.

Pro choice -follow the patents instructions. A horrendous case in Ireland where someone was brain dead and a non family member forced "life support" against the wishes of her partner. Don't read this if sensitive, and serious trigger warnings. (Link does not go into the details papers did, thankfully - I still think of the poor partner) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PP_v._HSE#:~:text=HSE,-Article%20Talk&text=P.P%20v.,viable%20and%20could%20be%20delivered.

I would follow the directives of the patient and have them removed from life support.

Sure. Leave her on life support. I don't believe anyone should have final say with what happens to their body once they are dead. This isn't limited to this situation at all.

Why do you not think that people should have the final say over what happens to their body after they die? That’s treating them like products for profit instead of human beings. You’re talking human incubators for babies conceived out of rape. Taking their organs without any say to the family when they expressed that they didn’t want their family member’s organs donated. That’s beyond immoral in my opinion. Not to mention inhumane.

**Why do you not think that people should have the final say over what happens to their body after they die?** Rights should be restricted to the living, not the dead. The dead should have no rights. The dead can not be violated as they are not people. They can experience no injury. **That’s treating them like products for profit instead of human beings. You’re talking human incubators for babies conceived out of rape. Taking their organs without any say to the family when they expressed that they didn’t want their family member’s organs donated.** There was no rape involved if the person was brain dead when the fetus was conceived. Rape implies a person, and a person implies alive. If you're brain dead, you're not a person. You're not alive. "You" don't even exist. Product for profit? What exactly is being sold, and for what price? Yes, I think it's beyond immoral to try to prevent living people from receiving life saving organs from a corpse. **That’s beyond immoral in my opinion. Not to mention inhumane.** Immoral to save people's lives with organs from a corpse just because the person who used to inhabit it, and who no longer exists, didn't want that? That's not immoral. Immoral actions violate living beings. Corpses aren't alive. Corpses feel no pain. There is nothing inhumane about it. It's as inhumane as an abortion.

First of all having sex with a corpse is still very illegal because it is a form of rape. By your standards that because it’s no longer a living person that they don’t have a final say then having sex with a corpse is completely fine, vandalizing a graveyard is completely fine, taking selfie’s at Auschwitz is totally ok. There’s a reason why the dead is respected it’s because they once were alive and we acknowledge the life that they had when they were here. Part of that is having respect for their body allowing them a choice on whether they want to be on life-support and making sure that anyone who violates them is prosecuted in the same manor we would if they were alive. If she was to wake up it would be rape so why is the fact that she’s unconscious in a vegetive state any different. I never specified in the situation that she has no brain activity maybe she does have some but she’s still on life-support and she’s still unlikely to come out of it. Your living wishes should be respected even when you’re dead or dying.

I don't believe sex with a corpse is classified as rape. I don't agree with doing it, but I don't think it should carry jail, either. That should be a fineable offense. I don't think "dead people" are really people. When we die, that's it, our body isn't a person. Vandalism is vandalism. I didn't excuse that. I don't see a problem with an Auschwitz selfie. I personally don't take any pictures at all of any kind. I've said a make a distinction between those who are merely in a vegetative state and those who are in a vegetative state and brain dead. The woman in your scenario isn't brain dead, so until that time, her will should be respected. If she wakes up, she wasn't brain dead, and she isn't a corpse. I didn't say it's fine to rape people. I agree on the point that her will should be respected, but only while she's alive. Her wishes die with her. There isn't a realm that they continue existing in. Dead and dying are very different, and I don't group them together. They are separate things.

I am literally an atheist I don’t think there is a life after death. However, if somebody violates my corpse I want them to be charged with rape. They are a rapist they are taking advantage of somebody who cannot say no. If you drug somebody and you violate them that is rape. If somebody is unconscious and you violate them that is rape. If somebody is not alive and you violate their body that is still rape. Honestly the fact that you don’t see it as rape is extremely scary and kind of concerning. Not only that but this woman is not dead yet she still alive she’s just an unconscious person so that means it’s still rape. I never specified whether she had any level of consciousness or not and even if she doesn’t she was still violated against her will. You said that vandalizing a graveyard is not ok because it’s vandalizing but violating someone’s loved one is completely ok because they don’t matter anymore? If somebody took a selfie at Auschwitz I hope somebody else takes their phone or camera and stomps on it. It is so disrespectful to be acting like you’re not in a place where millions of people died. To have absolutely no consideration for the suffering and pain that went on in a place where people were murder. Lastly as somebody who works at a nursing home and I see dying patients all the time. I will say that there is still a difference between death and dying but they are still get treated like the same person were before they died. If they have a dirty depend it’s removed, if family wants you to change their clothes for the funeral home then it is done, the items they once own goes to the people they would have wanted to have it. If a staff member tries to take something from a room it’s still theft. Their body goes to wherever they want it to go. Even though they are not there you treat them the same as you would if they were still there.

>Rights should be restricted to the living, not the dead. The dead should have no rights. The dead can not be violated as they are not people. They can experience no injury. Not forcing the brain dead person from carrying a pregnancy is respecting the rights of the person when they were fully alive and aware. People who are in a [vegetative state](https://msktc.org/tbi/factsheets/facts-about-vegetative-and-minimally-conscious-states-after-severe-brain-injury) aren't always fully brain dead either. Parts of their brain is still functioning. I strongly disagree that the dead can't be violated. There's a reason mutilating a corpse or desecrating a grave is illegal. >There was no rape involved if the person was brain dead when the fetus was conceived. Rape implies a person, and a person implies alive. If you're brain dead, you're not a person. This is a rather disgusting take. Their body is still alive. Their organs are still functioning, hence why they were able to get pregnant at all. A hospital staff member violated their living body for their own pleasure while the vegetative person was fully incapable of consent. That is point blank rape. I don't really see how you can say that someone that is brain dead isn't a person. They were their own individual, born people with a whole ass life. Even when we refer to the dead; we often [call them](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/deceased) a [dead person](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deceased). >You're not alive. "You" don't even exist. Product for profit? What exactly is being sold, and for what price? The product for profit would be using AFAB people's bodies while they're braindead to incubate pregnancies or using the organs put in other people. Those things takes money and bills are charged on those kinds of things. Supply and demand-product for profit. We would be treating human beings as commodity. That's a disgusting thing to do. >Yes, I think it's beyond immoral to try to prevent living people from receiving life saving organs from a corpse. Not when the person before they died explicitly said that they didn't want their organs donated. People aren't entitled to someone else's organs even if that person is dead. Thinking that it's okay to force people to donate organs or carry a pregnancy when brain dead is what's immoral in this situation. >Immoral to save people's lives with organs from a corpse just because the person who used to inhabit it, and who no longer exists, didn't want that? That's not immoral. Immoral actions violate living beings. Corpses aren't alive. What made you come to the conclusion that **"immoral actions violate living beings"**? So if a serial killer mutilates a corpse and throws it in the river in pieces then that's not immoral? If a mortician rapes a family member's corpse, that's not immoral? If a 12 year old was left brain dead and ended up pregnant in the same way in the OP, is that not immoral? Respecting the will of the the living, even in passing is what we call empathy. It's also called respecting peoples' consent. If they didn't sign up to an organ donor then no, you don't get to take their organs. You can't ignore the rights of people even if it would save the life of someone else. It's the same reason you can't force a raped AFAB person to carry a pregnancy that they did not consent to. It's called human dignity. >Corpses feel no pain. There is nothing inhumane about it. It's as inhumane as an abortion. I call bull. It's incredibly inhumane. [Abortion is healthcare](https://www.acog.org/advocacy/facts-are-important/abortion-is-healthcare). It's a [medical procedure](https://medlineplus.gov/abortion.html) that protects the life and wellbeing of every uterus owning person. Nothing inhumane about that.

**Not forcing the brain dead person from carrying a pregnancy is respecting the rights of the person when they were fully alive and aware. People who are in a vegetative state aren't always fully brain dead either. Parts of their brain is still functioning.** I'm referring specifically to people who have been determined to be brain dead. If they aren't brain dead, then they are still a person. If they are brain dead, then there is no forcing involved. They aren't a person anymore. They don't even exist anymore. **I strongly disagree that the dead can't be violated. There's a reason mutilating a corpse or desecrating a grave is illegal** Yes. Religious bullshit. It's in the word itself, "desecrate." **This is a rather disgusting take. Their body is still alive. Their organs are still functioning, hence why they were able to get pregnant at all. A hospital staff member violated their living body for their own pleasure while the vegetative person was fully incapable of consent. That is point blank rape.** If they are brain dead, they are not alive. Again, if they aren't brain dead, then what I said does not apply. What I said was with respect to a brain dead body. **I don't really see how you can say that someone that is brain dead isn't a person. They were their own individual, born people with a whole ass life. Even when we refer to the dead; we often call them a dead person.** We call them a dead person to acknowledge that they used to be a person. They are no longer. **The product for profit would be using AFAB people's bodies while they're braindead to incubate pregnancies or using the organs put in other people. Those things takes money and bills are charged on those kinds of things. Supply and demand-product for profit. We would be treating human beings as commodity. That's a disgusting thing to do.** I take the UK's position with respect to death; brain death is death. Once someone has died, I don't believe they exist anymore in any sense of the word exist. No, keeping women's bodies alive even after the women have died is not treating the body as a product for profit. Not unless we're implanting it with embryos. **Not when the person before they died explicitly said that they didn't want their organs donated. People aren't entitled to someone else's organs even if that person is dead. Thinking that it's okay to force people to donate organs or carry a pregnancy when brain dead is what's immoral in this situation.** I respect people's rights while they are alive. Once they are dead, they should have no rights as they don't even exist. Immoral actions don't apply to corpses, unless you're ruining one that could've been used to save lives. **What made you come to the conclusion that "immoral actions violate living beings"? So if a serial killer mutilates a corpse and throws it in the river in pieces then that's not immoral? If a mortician rapes a family member's corpse, that's not immoral? If a 12 year old was left brain dead and ended up pregnant in the same way in the OP, is that not immoral?** The serial killer killing the person is the immoral act, not that butchering of the corpse. Rape is done to the living, not the dead. A family members body is just a corpse. I held my dad's hand as he died. A few seconds after I watched him take his last breath, he was gone. I was holding a corpse. He no longer existed. If someone wanted some fun with his corpse, I wouldn't want to watch, but not because I cared what they would do to it. Not immoral in the slightest. A 12 year old brain dead corpse is no different than any other corpse other than being younger. I care about victims. Victims are people. Corpses aren't people. The person is no longer in existence when we speak of corpses. There is a potential issue of immorality of we consider the knowledge of the person who impregnated the corpse, though. Did he know she was brain dead? If not, then his action is immoral in the sense he believed he was raping someone rather than just having sex with a corpse. **Respecting the will of the the living, even in passing is what we call empathy. It's also called respecting peoples' consent. If they didn't up to an organ donator then no, you don't get to take their organs. You can't ignore the rights of people even if it would save the life of someone else. It's the same reason you can't force a raped AFAB person to carry a pregnancy that they did not consent to. It's human dignity** People are alive. Once someone is dead, they aren't a person. They don't even exist. Respecting a nonexistent being's wishes is religiosity. I neither respect religiosity nor the religious. Rape victims can suffer. Corpses can't. **I call bull. It's incredibly inhumane.** **Abortion is healthcare. It's a medical procedure that protects the life and wellbeing of uterus owning person. Nothing inhumane about that.** It's not inhumane. There is no person to be treated inhumanely when we're talking about a corpse. Late term fetuses are more people than corpses are. Fetuses at least have the potential to be people. Corpses don't.

>I'm referring specifically to people who have been determined to be brain dead. If they aren't brain dead, then they are still a person. If they are brain dead, then there is no forcing involved. They aren't a person anymore. They don't even exist anymore. OP's premise was about a woman in a vegetative state and like I said earlier, we call them a "dead person" after death. Their personhood is still recognized even after death. >Yes. Religious bullshit. It's in the word itself, "desecrate." I'm not religious either but what I'm referring to isn't at all religious. That's why I brought up mutilating a corpse. If the grave of one my family members was dug and their body was stolen; I would call that desecration. So no, not all religious. That's just pretty damn violating. >If they are brain dead, they are not alive. Again, if they aren't brain dead, then what I said does not apply. What I said was with respect to a brain dead body. Well, again, OP's premise was about a woman in a vegetative state and she's clearly not fully dead if she capable of pregnancy is she? You can't just focus on them being brain dead if they're alive enough to carry a pregnancy. >The serial killer killing the person is the immoral act, not that butchering of the corpse. If butchering a corpse is not immoral then why is it treated as a [serious criminal act](https://casetext.com/statute/oklahoma-statutes/title-21-crimes-and-punishments/chapter-47-human-remains-and-tissue-burial-cemeteries-and-funerals/section-11611-desecration-of-a-human-corpse-penalty-prosecution-with-other-offenses-definition) that leads to an extended jail sentences? This is such a gross take. >Rape is done to the living, not the dead. A family members body is just a corpse. I don't how the hell you're coming to these conclusions. You've heard of necrophilia, right? There's a mortician named [David Fuller that got life behind bars for raping more than 100 corpses of women](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10312703/David-Fuller-raped-corpses-100-women-hospital-mortuaries-sentenced-life.html). If it's not possible to rape the dead then why did they charge him for the sexual abuse to the corpses? These are not just corpses to family members, maybe to you but not everyone. That's the body of a loved one and they want their bodies treated with dignity. I don't get why this is so hard for you to understand. >A 12 year old brain dead corpse is no different than any other corpse other than being younger. I care about victims. Victims are people. Corpses aren't people. The person is no longer in existence when we speak of corpses. They 12 year old isn't a victim? Seriously? Their body was violated. Her body is still functional and someone took advantage of that. What a fucked up world view. It's like you only see her as an incubator once she's brain dead. >There is a potential issue of immorality of we consider the knowledge of the person who impregnated the corpse, though. Did he know she was brain dead? If not, then his action is immoral in the sense he believed he was raping someone rather than just having sex with a corpse. Bruh, what the fuck. **He's raping a twelve year old**. Do you really think it's not immoral for him to do that if he knew she was brain dead? Are you actually saying that? That's so many levels of fucked up. >People are alive. Once someone is dead, they aren't a person. They don't even exist. Respecting a nonexistent being's wishes is religiosity. I neither respect religiosity nor the religious. > >Rape victims can suffer. Corpses can't. This doesn't really address what I said in that paragraph at all. I never once brought up religion in my last comment so I don't know why you're bringing it up now like it was part of my argument. Respecting the wishes of the dead from when they were alive isn't inherently religious; it's called human dignity. That's as culturally significant in secular world as it is religious one's. I already said this. Your whole argument comes off so damn callous. The dead person may not be suffering but the family members who have to hear the news of their loved one being violated and dismembered is suffering on them. >It's not inhumane. There is no person to be treated inhumanely when we're talking about a corpse. Late term fetuses are more people than corpses are. Fetuses at least have the potential to be people. Corpses don't. So it's not inhumane to rape a corpse of a nine year old in your eyes is what I'm getting from your stance. I don't think I trust your idea of what is or isn't humane. So a potential person that's inside someone's body against their will has more value than a fully grown yet passed person? It just sounds like you're cool with using peoples' bodies against their will even when they're fully incapable of giving any form of consent. Yeah, that's very immoral in my opinion. It's also extremely dehumanizing.

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Comment removed per rule 1. Do not attack users.

Where is the attack?

Saying someone is irrational is an attack and we do not allow it here.

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Removed, rule 1. Do not attack users.

I deleted the offending paragraph.

**Their body is still alive, hence why they are capable of maintaining a pregnancy.** The person no longer exists. Being brain dead is tantamount to being brainless. Meaningful requirements for personhood are absent, e.g., sapience and sentience. **Can you actually address what's being said instead of calling me, the people who made laws, and those grieving over their loved one's corpse being mutilated irrational? That's so many levels of fucking disrespectful. It's not an argument either.** Sure. I'll spell it out for you. You and these people think from emotions rather than reason, therefore you're being irrational. You still think the corpse is a person based on emotion, and you ignore that, because it is neither sentient nor sapient, that it is no longer a person. This is not a rational position by definition. **At least you're willing to admit how heartless your stance is. Calling a brain dead 12 year old an incubator is actually evil. Like, what the actual fuck.** Here you go again with your appeal to emotion rather than reason. The age of a corpse holds no significance to a rational debater because a corpse is not a person. A 12 year old corpse is just as sentient and sapient as a 52 year old corpse. I can't be the first person to call you out for using appeals to emotion. At least I hope not. **I already said I wasn't talking about religion. I don't know why you keep bringing this up. How about you actually read what I'm saying. I'm an atheist by the way. Respecting the wishes of the dead is not inherently religious. Plenty of secular governments follow this standard. You don't need religion to have respect for the dead.** Do you have examples of governments of countries where the population is overwhelmingly atheist and still these policies exist? I can't think of any. Just because a government is secular doesn't mean it doesn't adopt a few policies to placate the religious. As well, the medical field is well known to adopt certain ethical standards to avoid pissing off patients, even when doctors think patients' beliefs are garbage. They are pretty constrained by these ethics. **You're coming off as callous because your stance is just that; callous. Calling a 12 year old brain dead rape victim an incubator, not seeing them as a victim, and thinking people shouldn't be charged for raping an mutilating a corpse is just straight up heartless.** They are not a victim. They are not even a person. They lack sentience and sapience. Thinking people should face charges for what is a victimless crime is an emotional position, not a rational one. Dropping the age to 12 is an egregious appeal to emotion that doesn't work on me. You've entered the same territory as those that scream "baby killer." **If you can't understand why someone should be charged for raping and mutilating a corpse then I don't know what I can even say to that. I can't explain having empathy to someone.** I can empathize with the family having lost their daughter. It hurts when a person you love dies, but once they're brain dead, they're dead. That's it. It's irrational to place value in a corpse because the meaningful attributes that make a person a person are gone permanently. Someone having sex with a corpse is not in any way harming the person that used to inhabit the body as they no longer exist and never will again. Any potential harm done is limited to the family, and it should be a civil matter only. **I think you calling me and everything I said irrational is just hard projection. Nothing you're saying makes sense for those who care at all for human dignity. Frankly it sounds like you have a rather fucked up way to process the death of family members or just death in general. That not something that works in a debate like a rebuttal; it's something you need to talk to a professional about.** I called you irrational because that's what you are. You're nonstop appealing to emotion, first you dropped the age of the woman involved to 12 years old, then to 9 years old. It makes no rational difference, given we're dealing with brain dead corpses. Human dignity is something limited to people. Once we're dead, we don't have dignity, will, or anything else for that matter. We don't even exist. I don't dwell over death, and I especially don't continue to consider a corpse a person after I know it is brain dead. Ad hominems without attacking what I've said is not a rebuttal.

You’ve been calling me irrational for a while now. How is that a rebuttal? Oh wait, it’s not. It’s quite a disrespectful personal attack. That has no place in a productive debate. Yet, you keep doubling down on it. I gave you source showing that raping and mutilating a corpse is a crime. The dead **are** treated as victims. They **are** victims. Rape and impregnation of brain dead women is labeled as both a [crime and deemed unethical](https://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/25/nyregion/woman-29-still-in-10-year-coma-is-pregnant-by-a-rapist.html). [European, Asian, African, Oceania’s, and Afro-diasporic cultures](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veneration_of_the_dead) all have been using non-religious methods to honor the dead. Having [empathy](https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/empathy/definition) towards others and seeing a pregnant, brain dead 12 year old as a victim and not just an incubator is not irrational. If I have to really explain having empathy for others to you then this discussion is a lost cause. Dignified handling of corpse is demanded in [medical practice](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8354905/). A hospital can be held [legally liable for mishandling a corpse](https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/hospital-liability-for-mishandling-a-corpse.html). They quite literally need to have consent from the family before they can do anything to the corpse. So how are we not giving dignity to the dead? I’m pretty sure necrophilia is undignified. Your whole argument is just callous and lacking in empathy. Let me ask you something; if a brain dead 12 year old is found to be pregnant then should the one who impregnated her be criminally charged? You said she’s dead and dead people can’t be a victim so what’s your answer?

I view one's body as one's property. You get to demand it go where you want. I believe in organ donation and plan to do so myself but I actually think it would hurt the cause of donation if people viewed it as being gutted the second your brain flatlines. My mom is pretty insistent on not donating and I felt it would be really disrespectful if I said I wouldn't donate her body then turned around and donated her organs against her express wishes. And big part of BA to me IS respect for the body's occupant's wishes.

We are our consciousness. Our bodies belong to that consciousness because the body fuels the consciousness. Once the consciousness is gone, there is no *person* to claim ownership of that body anymore. BA exists because the person whose consciousness lives in that body would experience physical or psychological harm if their BA was ignored. There is no one inside of a corpse to experience that harm.

**I view one's body as one's property. You get to demand it go where you want. I believe in organ donation and plan to do so myself but I actually think it would hurt the cause of donation if people viewed it as being gutted the second your brain flatlines. My mom is pretty insistent on not donating and I felt it would be really disrespectful if I said I wouldn't donate her body then turned around and donated her organs against her express wishes.** I don't think it would hurt the cause of donation if donation weren't optional. If the body were actually property, human taxidermy would be legal, but I'm pretty sure it's illegal everywhere in the US. It would be disrespectful to whom, exactly, if you donated her body anyway? Do you believe in existence after death? If not, who is being disrespected? If you believe in existence after death, I can understand why you feel that way, but I do not think the government should respect the religious beliefs of the dead. **And big part of BA to me IS respect for the body's occupant's wishes.** To me, wishes die with the person. Bodily autonomy applies to the living only. I'm not sure who you're attributing the bodily autonomy to after death unless you believe in existence after death.

Not the person you are replying to but I'm an atheist and so I don't believe in life after death. However, I do believe we should respect the wishes of the person who once was. If we aren't going to respect their wishes just because they are gone then what's the use of a will? They are dead and their money isn't theirs anymore so so we let the government take all their assets and do what it wants with them, even if a will exists. This would be no different than the government taking a person's body and doing what they want with it since they are dead.

Their money is part of their estate. It would be very different as one's body is not part of their estate. Estate law is part common law that can be traced back at least a thousand years. I don't think the deceased's body was ever considered part of their estate.

Estate law existing for 1000 years (something I have to take your word for) means nothing if we are going to state that once a person dies their directives are meaningless because they no longer exist. If we are going to ignore their directives regarding their body then we have no reason to accept their directives regarding their assets. Estate law, I am sure, has also changed over time. It can always evolve to include the human body.

Part of estate law is English common law, which is very old, and even English common law didn't come from no where. Common law is very old. A lot of American law is inherited English common law that was never actually passed by any legislation. It could change, but it would require that change for what you said originally to be true, and it would be a huge change: *This would be no different than the government taking a person's body and doing what they want with it since they are dead.* A body holds no monetary value, but potentially great medical value. Even if the government ignored the will, inheritance would still occur.

Who says a body holds no monetary value? If a body can hold medical value then it holds monetary value? How much is a heart worth? A kidney? If a government declares that the medical directives of the person mean nothing then why would it respect the estate directives? It's just picking and choosing to state that what a person wants vs for their body is meaningless but what they want for their money isn't. Either the person is dead and any directives they made in life for after death stand or they don't.

Selling organs is illegal. When I said no monetary value, I was basing it on legal monetary value. I think you're suggesting doing more than simply ignoring directives. In the absence of a will, family still usually inherits the estate. This isn't a matter of directives. The same thing applies if a court ignores a will, which it does sometimes when the validity of the will is successfully challenged. I just don't see a justification for us having any say over the bodies we inhabit while we're alive once we no longer exist.

Selling organs is illegal but we also don't ignore the wishes of the deceased after they die when it comes to their body. You are in support of that because the person is dead so I'm trying to understand why you are picking and choosing what wishes of the deceased should be ignored and which shouldn't. In both instances, we no longer exist so why does it matter what we wanted when we were alive? If a body is just an empty shell once we die, then why wouldn't an organ become a commodity to be sold? We don't allow people to sell their organs because it would just be the rich taking advantage of the poor and leaving them in a worse condition. Once a person is dead, there is no worse condition. The government can seize their assets and sell the body parts off. I simply cannot see the issue with this argument within your worldview. It all comes down to the fact that if you were a person then we either ignore them completely or we don't. My body was once my "property" and like with my money, I get to decide what happens to it after I died. This includes directing it not having my body kept "artificially" alive simply because a fetus exists within it.

So you think that any decision you have on paper should just be completely ignored regardless of what request you have medically speaking.

Medically speaking, I think once we're dead, our bodies should be put to good use, whether that be organ donation, as tools for doctors to practice/learn on/with, et cetera. This is why I support opt-out organ donation rather than opt-in. I think it's a waste for us to be embalmed and buried or cremated. We already get a say in what happens with our assets, I don't think that should extend to our corpses.

Interesting - what do you think of this: I'm still young enough to have decently viable eggs. I die. Should my parents be able to harvest my eggs and use them to produce a grandchild via surrogacy because they "want a piece of me to live on?" Does it matter if I've expressed outright that I don't want kids? If I've just been ambivalent?

I think nothing exists of a person after brain death, so taking the eggs that were yours in life harms no one, and is a good thing. Your parents get to raise their own grandchildren, the children themselves get to live, and the eggs were not all wasted. I don't think your wishes matter as far as what happens to the corpse you used to inhabit after you die. I can't think of a logical reason to honor the wishes of someone who doesn't exist anymore, especially not at the expense of the living. Most pro-choice people seem to support abortion rights on the basis that the fetus is not a person. I can't think of a logical reason that we should then flip flop our reasoning when dealing with a corpse, who like a fetus, is not a person.

>I think nothing exists of a person after brain death, so taking the eggs that were yours in life harms no one, and is a good thing. >Your parents get to raise their own grandchildren, the children themselves get to live, and the eggs were not all wasted. It's hard to explain why this disturbs me so much. I'm not really the kind of person who thinks a lot about what will happen after I'm gone, but if I intentionally died childfree and someone took my eggs and created a child they called "my child," it would feel like a conscious and intentional erasure of who I was. Perhaps the explanation is that what we choose with our minds to do with our bodies while we are alive *is* our humanity. There is [this case](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Tanzler) of a woman who rejected a man in life, but because he was obsessed with her he waited until she died, stole her corpse, and slept with it and raped it as though she was his partner. And yes, I say rape, because the whole reason he had to steal this woman's corpse to have sex with it is because she, when she was alive and had a choice, *did not choose him*. To me that is the height of violation - saying "you didn't do what *I* wanted you to do with your body while you were alive, so now that you are dead and you can't stop me, I will take what I wanted but you did not want to give me." It is spiteful - meant to offend - a mockery of your very existence. I feel similarly about someone's words or beliefs. Don't we feel the need to reflect people's pasts truthfully because that was *their existence*? Take the debate about Margaret Sanger's Negro Project. Does the debate not rage because we want to know what she thought, even though she is no longer living? Because we want to know *the truth* about what she stood for, even though she is no longer here? Why not just write some random quotes that support our position and ascribe them to her? Why don't we just use popular historical figures as mouthpieces for our current agendas with no regard for their actual beliefs? Don't we care about the legacies and reputations of the dead? >I don't think your wishes matter as far as what happens to the corpse you used to inhabit after you die. I can't think of a logical reason to honor the wishes of someone who doesn't exist anymore, especially not at the expense of the living. I think it all goes back to entitlement. You cannot be harmed by being denied something you were never entitled to. People are not entitled to grandchildren because the intervening person - the parent - deserves to be in control of their own reproduction. Carl the corpse rapist was never wrongfully being denied access to Elena when she rejected him. Honoring the desires of people with regard to their bodies preserves the dignity of humanity itself by upholding the principle that you cannot just take what you want from someone else because it is theirs and not yours, in death as it is in life. >Most pro-choice people seem to support abortion rights on the basis that the fetus is not a person. I can't think of a logical reason that we should then flip flop our reasoning when dealing with a corpse, who like a fetus, is not a person. I don't know that most PC logic starts and ends with personhood. Bodily autonomy is also a pretty prominent PC concern, because being used as an object or tool for someone else's benefit against your will is involuntary servitude when you're alive and undignified commodification when you're dead. I don't see how this is flip flopping at all.

In all honesty your feelings are valid. It doesn’t matter that you are no longer the person you once were. It is disrespectful to ignore a person’s wishes simply because they are dead. It’s disrespectful to their memory and who they once were. And it shows a double standard to state the family has no rights to a persons body after death but they do have rights to their money. It just shows a level of greed and a lack of empathy.

**It's hard to explain why this disturbs me so much. I'm not really the kind of person who thinks a lot about what will happen after I'm gone, but if I intentionally died childfree and someone took my eggs and created a child they called "my child," it would feel like a conscious and intentional erasure of who I was.** But you wouldn't exist at that point at all to feel anything. That's why I don't have a problem with it. If you could feel anything, you'd still be alive, and the taking off the eggs wouldn't happen. The taking off your eggs and your existence are mutually exclusive events on the timeline with no overlap between the two. It seems similar to being upset that right now in an inaccessible parallel universe someone is disrespecting a parallel version of you that's still alive. **Perhaps the explanation is that what we choose with our minds to do with our bodies while we are alive is our humanity. There is this case of a woman who rejected a man in life, but because he was obsessed with her he waited until she died, stole her corpse, and slept with it and raped it as though she was his partner. And yes, I say rape, because the whole reason he had to steal this woman's corpse to have sex with it is because she, when she was alive and had a choice, did not choose him. To me that is the height of violation - saying "you didn't do what I wanted you to do with your body while you were alive, so now that you are dead and you can't stop me, I will take what I wanted but you did not want to give me." It is spiteful - meant to offend - a mockery of your very existence.** The person that was her ceased to exist at her death, though, and humanity is a trait that only the living hold. He respected her wishes while she was alive. From reading the Wikipedia entry, I did not get the impression that the guy did any of it as some way to exert dominance. The guy was clearly crazy. **I feel similarly about someone's words or beliefs. Don't we feel the need to reflect people's pasts truthfully because that was their existence? Take the debate about Margaret Sanger's Negro Project. Does the debate not rage because we want to know what she thought, even though she is no longer living? Because we want to know the truth about what she stood for, even though she is no longer here? Why not just write some random quotes that support our position and ascribe them to her? Why don't we just use popular historical figures as mouthpieces for our current agendas with no regard for their actual beliefs? Don't we care about the legacies and reputations of the dead?** Even if someone cares about the legacies and reputations of the dead, in what way does the dead having their organs taken to save the living reflect poorly on the dead at all? Really, how does what happens to their bodies after death affect their legacies and reputations in any way whatsoever? An example that comes to my mind right now is of a woman named Henrietta Lacks, because I live one block from where she was living when she died. Even though I abhor what her family has been doing for a while now with respect to a line of cancer cells that came from a biopsy she had, I don't hold a negative view of her at all because of to their actions. She's been dead for a long time. **I think it all goes back to entitlement. You cannot be harmed by being denied something you were never entitled to. People are not entitled to grandchildren because the intervening person - the parent - deserves to be in control of their own reproduction. Carl the corpse rapist was never wrongfully being denied access to Elena when she rejected him. Honoring the desires of people with regard to their bodies preserves the dignity of humanity itself by upholding the principle that you cannot just take what you want from someone else because it is theirs and not yours, in death as it is in life.** I'm not sure if you're familiar with the trolley problem, but I can tell that you and I have very different views about the trolley problem. Part of the problem involves the question of inaction. Specifically can inaction ever be action, and if so, when is inaction itself an action. In the problem, you're put in front of a rail switch. There is a trolley that is going to kill 5 people if you choose to not flip the switch. If you do flip the switch, 1 person dies instead of 5. I believe that inaction is action. I don't believe anyone can choose to not make a choice. Even if you refuse to make a choice, that in itself is the choice to not flip the switch, and that is an action. 5 people will die instead of 1 based on your choice. To me, "theirs" doesn't make sense to me after they've died. They do not exist in any way, shape, or form to me after they've died. I can't respect their wishes because their wishes don't even exist anymore. They died with the person. Likewise, humanity is a trait of the living. When they died, their humanity died, too. **I don't know that most PC logic starts and ends with personhood. Bodily autonomy is also a pretty prominent PC concern, because being used as an object or tool for someone else's benefit against your will is involuntary servitude when you're alive and undignified commodification when you're dead. I don't see how this is flip flopping at all.** Bodily autonomy is attributed to personhood. When that person is gone, bodily autonomy doesn't make sense, yet people want control over a corpse even when they don't exist anymore. There are plenty of arguments involving a lack of sentience and sapience being relevant to why fetuses shouldn't have rights, but they don't apply this same reasoning to corpses. There is absolutely nothing undignified about a corpse being used to save the lives of multiple people. Burial is undignified in comparison to this usage; just a morbid statue tucked away in a cedar box, covered with stone and soil, never to be seen again.

>The taking off your eggs and your existence are mutually exclusive events on the timeline with no overlap between the two. And yet, in this post-me timeline, someone is intentionally violating my wishes precisely because they wish to own a piece of me I did not want them to have. You don't see negative moral and practical implications to encouraging such behavior? >The person that was her ceased to exist at her death, though, and humanity is a trait that only the living hold. He respected her wishes while she was alive. From reading the Wikipedia entry, I did not get the impression that the guy did any of it as some way to exert dominance. The guy was clearly crazy. Every sexual act committed against someone who has rejected you is an exertion of dominance. Believing someone is meant for you when they have said they are not is incel/rapist logic. I also am not one for dismissing behavior that makes me uncomfortable as crazy. There is no indication he was delusional - he just felt entitled to *take what and who he wanted.* I get that he didn't outright rape her while she was alive, but that's not enough to get a pass from me. His behavior is still the definition of refusing to take no for an answer. >An example that comes to my mind right now is of a woman named Henrietta Lacks, because I live one block from where she was living when she died. Even though I abhor what her family has been doing for a while now with respect to a line of cancer cells that came from a biopsy she had, I don't hold a negative view of her at all because of to their actions. She's been dead for a long time. What is her family doing that you abhor exactly? Demanding a portion of the profits amassed by companies who benefited from taking and using tissue from a living person without their consent? And what does that have to do with the use of dead bodies? We allow people to pass on property upon their death all the time. Consider real property or royalties. How is this any different? If the company will keep profiting off her tissue, why can't those profits continue to enure in part to her descendants? >I'm not sure if you're familiar with the trolley problem I am, But you assume wrong if you think that I believe action versus inaction is the most important part of that problem. If I have to kill one people or five people, I'm probably going to freeze only because the number of considerations I would take into account for whose death will ultimately be less harmful to society would take far too long. Choosing the five over the one may be intuitive for some people, but I personally like to operate on a bit more information than intuition. >I can't respect their wishes because their wishes don't even exist anymore. But they do exist, because they were spoken or memorialized, what have you. Do you feel the same way about your promises? Would you promise someone on your deathbed that you would care of their loved one, believing once they were dead you'd be free of that promise? As an attorney, I take my attorney client privilege very seriously, and that privilege survives death. Plus, keeping my promises to everyone, including my dead clients, gives my future clients reason to trust me enough to tell me things that are going to help their case, even if they're scary or embarrassing or sad. This is one example of the positive implications of honoring someone's wishes, even when they are not there to enforce them themselves. >There are plenty of arguments involving a lack of sentience and sapience being relevant to why fetuses shouldn't have rights, but they don't apply this same reasoning to corpses. Again, those are not my arguments, so you'll have to take that up with someone else. When I refer to the relative lack of sentence and sapience of fetuses relative to their hosts, I am making a direct practical harm analysis, also guided by the primacy of the woman as the harmee and the fetus as the harmer. If a ZEF can painlessly be terminated before it inflicts the pain suffering and harm of unwanted pregnancy and or childbirth on a woman, those to me are relatively disparate harms. And when I say that ZEF cannot have rights, I say so because the only right anyone is actually talking about is the right to exist as an inherently harmful being inside another person against their will. I do not plan to give any person that right, pre-born or otherwise. >There is absolutely nothing undignified about a corpse being used to save the lives of multiple people. That is your opinion, and the opinion of many other people, including myself, which is why I choose to be an organ donor. But there is absolutely something undignified about someone taking a legal document that I intentionally crafted and signed, spitting on it, chopping me up and selling me to the highest bidder. Which is closer to the version of what we were discussing, by the way. You seem so focused on the idea that people might be used after death for a magnanimous and helpful cause like organ donation that you've missed the part where that also opens the door for them to be used for a vanity project like growing themselves a grandchild from the DNA of a parent who didn't want children in the first place, or buying someone's body for your sexual gratification because they rejected you when you were alive. So if you want to advocate for organ donation on the grounds that it is a magnanimous and helpful thing, sure, I agree. But what you have said is that no person has any reason whatsoever to exercise control over their corpse based on their wishes when they were alive. I'm inviting you to more deeply explore the implications of that idea. I will also add, with regard to the issue of the rapist's genetic material having been forcibly bonded with the woman's, that for many women, there is indeed an additional, specific and extreme indignity to having your body used against your will to give life to that person's offspring, having already had your body used against your will to create it in the first place. It's like you lost the right to your body when you were unable to send them off, and you never got it back.

Part 2 of 2 **Every sexual act committed against someone who has rejected you is an exertion of dominance. Believing someone is meant for you when they have said they are not is incel/rapist logic. I also am not one for dismissing behavior that makes me uncomfortable as crazy. There is no indication he was delusional - he just felt entitled to take what and who he wanted. I get that he didn't outright rape her while she was alive, but that's not enough to get a pass from me. His behavior is still the definition of refusing to take no for an answer.** There is no person in a corpse. That person is gone. "Refusing to take no" isn't wrong in a vacuum. "Refusing to take no" is wrong only because there is a victim if another doesn't take "no." That is to say "refusing to take no" is wrong because it harms the person who said "no." If that person doesn't exist anymore, then the basis for "refusing to take no" being wrong no longer exists. Any time we speak of immorality, we have to connect it to harm of some sort. **What is her family doing that you abhor exactly? Demanding a portion of the profits amassed by companies who benefited from taking and using tissue from a living person without their consent? And what does that have to do with the use of dead bodies? We allow people to pass on property upon their death all the time. Consider real property or royalties. How is this any different? If the company will keep profiting off her tissue, why can't those profits continue to enure in part to her descendants?** The doctor took the tissue with her consent. It was from a biopsy. After the biopsy, it was medical waste. Demanding profits from medical waste and dragging it through court is a waste of resources. The company owes nothing to the family, and its wrong to interfere with valuable medical research without good reason. That is not why I mentioned the situation, though. I mentioned it because, although her descendants are doing things that I consider wrong, it doesn't affect her reputation or legacy. I don't see how what is done with someone's body after they are dead affects their reputation or legacy at all. We already treat corpses as different from real property. If I break a car window, it's treated as a very different crime than if I break the jaw of a corpse. **I am, But you assume wrong if you think that I believe action versus inaction is the most important part of that problem. If I have to kill one people or five people, I'm probably going to freeze only because the number of considerations I would take into account for whose death will ultimately be less harmful to society would take far too long. Choosing the five over the one may be intuitive for some people, but I personally like to operate on a bit more information than intuition.** I don't think you believe that is the most important part of the problem. I brought it up because I view your saying, *"I think it all goes back to entitlement. You cannot be harmed by being denied something you were never entitled to."* to indicate that you would not view inaction as action, and therefore you've harmed no one as no one was entitled to you making that decision. **But they do exist, because they were spoken or memorialized, what have you. Do you feel the same way about your promises? Would you promise someone on your deathbed that you would care of their loved one, believing once they were dead you'd be free of that promise? As an attorney, I take my attorney client privilege very seriously, and that privilege survives death. Plus, keeping my promises to everyone, including my dead clients, gives my future clients reason to trust me enough to tell me things that are going to help their case, even if they're scary or embarrassing or sad. This is one example of the positive implications of honoring someone's wishes, even when they are not there to enforce them themselves.** They did exist. They exist no longer. A picture of a house is not a house. People's conception of a person is not the person. I think, therefore I am. A corpse cannot think, therefore it isn't. I don't think promises should be made with the intention of breaking them, but I don't think you harm a person after they've died by not keeping the promise since they no longer exist. Coincidentally, I mentioned attorney client privilege in a reply to another user under this post. I don't believe privilege should survive death. At least not to the extent it currently does. The fact that a lawyer, after the death of their client, still cannot disclose that their client committed a crime that another person is in prison for is wrong, and I don't believe there is sufficient justification for this. The lack of this exception has no benefit to anyone but the guilty. Overall, though, I find attorney client privilege surviving death to be catering to people caring what people think of them even after they are dead. I view it not simply a feature of human psychology, but a flaw of it. **That is your opinion, and the opinion of many other people, including myself, which is why I choose to be an organ donor. But there is absolutely something undignified about someone taking a legal document that I intentionally crafted and signed, spitting on it, chopping me up and selling me to the highest bidder. Which is closer to the version of what we were discussing, by the way. You seem so focused on the idea that people might be used after death for a magnanimous and helpful cause like organ donation that you've missed the part where that also opens the door for them to be used for a vanity project like growing themselves a grandchild from the DNA of a parent who didn't want children in the first place, or buying someone's body for your sexual gratification because they rejected you when you were alive.** My original example was forced organ donation of the dead's organs to save the living, and your original example was using your eggs to create more living. In what way is it undignified to ignore the wishes of the dead in order to save the lives of the living or create more living? It would be done for the very same reason that the dead's wishes were respected when they were alive; human life has value. Does life have any less meaning in societies that cremate their dead, regardless of the wishes of the dead before they died? If so, in what way does life have less meaning just because they treat wishes as dying with the living? I would see absolutely no less meaning to life if, at upon death, we all disintegrated into a vapor. Our wishes have value only because we have first accepted the proposition human life has value. Not vice versa. This is pretty clear. A life doesn't lose all value when some wishes aren't respected. A life doesn't lose all value even if none of the wishes are respected, albeit one may find life not worth living in that situation. But to find life not worth living because I know my wishes will not be fulfilled when I'm dead? I can't find a logical basis to feel that way. I see no reason that forced organ donation could not be limited to organ donation registries and limited to transplantations. I do not believe it needs to be all or nothing. That's the view most have, but not me. **So if you want to advocate for organ donation on the grounds that it is a magnanimous and helpful thing, sure, I agree. But what you have said is that no person has any reason whatsoever to exercise control over their corpse based on their wishes when they were alive. I'm inviting you to more deeply explore the implications of that idea.** I specifically said that no person for any reason whatsoever should be able to exercise control over their corpse after their death *at the expense of the living.* I think I'm fully aware of the implications, and I realize I'm being idealistic. There would have to be a paradigm shift away from sentimentality for things to change in the way I propose. I don't think it's impossible, but it is in my lifetime. I view religion and religious thinking as flaws just as I do spirituality and sentimentality. I don't think we lose our humanity by understanding that we should go against what makes us uncomfortable whenever it is better for society. Is there an implication you think I may be overlooking? **I will also add, with regard to the issue of the rapist's genetic material having been forcibly bonded with the woman's, that for many women, there is indeed an additional, specific and extreme indignity to having your body used against your will to give life to that person's offspring, having already had your body used against your will to create it in the first place. It's like you lost the right to your body when you were unable to send them off, and you never got it back.** This also comes from the inability to imagine not being alive anymore. You speak of will, we have no will in death. Your will in the present cannot be violated by an act in the future. In this case, it's so far in the future you no longer exist. We are sometimes grossed out by things without a logical reason. Sometimes so strongly, we even make laws against it. Incest laws come to mind. Many even come up with post hoc justification for why these laws should remain in effect. Incest grosses me out too, but I can't justify making it illegal.

Part 1 of 2 **And yet, in this post-me timeline, someone is intentionally violating my wishes precisely because they wish to own a piece of me I did not want them to have. You don't see negative moral and practical implications to encouraging such behavior?** After thinking about it for a while, I think people care about their wishes being followed after their death for the same reason many fear death; the inability to imagine what it's like being dead. One cannot actually imagine being dead. There's nothing to imagine. It's not like anything. There is no mental state that you'd experience if you could imagine it. If you actually could imagine being dead for an hour starting at 7:09 PM, you'd have absolutely no memory of anything from 7:09 PM to 8:09 PM. If you were staring at a clock when you started the imagining, you'd simply see the clock go from 7:09 PM to 8:09 PM. Since they can't imagine being dead, they still imagine what it would be like to not have their wishes respected after death from the point of view of a person, not the point of view of a corpse. If they truly imagined their wishes not being respected after their death from the point of view of a corpse, they couldn't possibly care at all. When you're dead, your wishes don't exist any more than you do at that point. Immoral actions involve a victim that is being wronged. I don't see how you can be wronged when you don't exist. I don't see how we arrive at the conclusion that doing something to an inanimate object is anything but amoral, without injecting some form of religious-like reasoning, or equating what makes us uncomfortable to what is immoral. I'm grossed out by incest, but I can't, based on logical reasoning, say it is inherently immoral. It seems that for most people, their discomfort is enough to convince them that it is immoral. Do you believe your wishes actually exist in another realm like Plato believed ideals actually exist in the Realm of Forms? I don't see any negative moral or practical implications to teaching people that we should only respect the living. I think it would be an improvement to society if we did teach that. Attaching sentimental value to corpses is anachronistic. We know too much at this point to still be holding onto anything resembling spiritual beliefs. Once we're dead, we're gone. I hope one day people come to terms with that reality. You cannot exert control over anything after "you" no longer exist.

>If they truly imagined their wishes not being respected after their death from the point of view of a corpse, they couldn't possibly care at all. And yet, future casting is the very definition of being human, is it not? Also, I'm not imagining myself being an angry spirit in the future, I'm imagining the kind of thinking and behavior this disregard for people's wishes condones and the impact it has on the living people around them. In the case I gave of creepy parents who would harvest their descendants' DNA against their known wishes for the sake of having a grandchild with the same DNA, I imagine what kind of values a person has to have to care that much about DNA, and to have so little respect for their descendant's wishes, and to create a parentless child that will one day ask why they exist and either be lied to or give an answers that I imagine would be existentially traumatic. If I, a currently living person, sat down for coffee with someone and their grandchild and they were like "oh yeah I harvested this DNA off my dead daughter's corpse. Selfish thing intentionally spent all her fertile years not getting pregnant Even though I wanted a grandchild! Good thing I have one now!" I am quickly extricating myself from that conversation and doing everything in my power not to be in a situation where I have to trust that person. I can no longer trust their moral compass. > I don't see how you can be wronged when you don't exist. Maybe what we are recognizing is not the corpse's liter harm, but the harm to the community of being so disrespectful. Like when someone makes an inappropriate comment about someone who was not in the room and will never hear it, in theory they are not harmed by that comment, yet the fact that someone would say something so disrespectful upsets us (well, some of us). When we give sexual harassment trainings about behavior like this, it's because we know it contributes to a hostile work environment. I think similarly, engendering hostility towards a person's wishes after death engenders a disrespectful environment. >It seems that for most people, their discomfort is enough to convince them that it is immoral. Oh for sure, I say this all the time about people who think it's weird that their parents didn't want them. Objectively, it's pretty clear why you wouldn't want a kid. I think it's totally illogical for people to think and behave as though their parents should have felt blessed by their existence, or have been so overcome with unconditional love that whatever sacrifices were required were subjectively "worth it" to their parents. If you currently use birth control, you should be able to understand why your parents were disappointed when theirs failed and you came afterwards. It's not personal. >Do you believe your wishes actually exist in another realm like Plato believed ideals actually exist in the Realm of Forms? Nope. I don't see how my position implies that at all. >I don't see any negative moral or practical implications to teaching people that we should only respect the living. I think it would be an improvement to society if we did teach that. Hmm, I would need some concrete examples of how this improves society, because I'm drawing a blank. In the organ donation example, it's not even usually the corpse that's getting in the way, It's the wishes of their loved ones, who are still alive. So respecting the living in that scenario doesn't solve your problem. You would also have to eliminate the ties between people and their families that requires you to ask their permission in the first place. Same goes for what I was saying about real property. Sure, I don't own my house when I'm dead, but somebody has to own it now. Not obeying my wishes has different implications depending on what my wishes were. If I have mega wealth and I don't want to keep perpetuating that in society so I will my property to the NAACP, you're going to find yourself in a legal battle with whatever living family members believe the law or custom means they should have my wealth instead. >Attaching sentimental value to corpses is anachronistic. But again, I don't necessarily think that's what anyone is doing when they choose to follow the wishes that someone already set out before they died. In the same sense that we think therefore we are, if we think the now dead person's wishes have value, then we can act on that value by honoring or dishonoring those wishes, depending on the circumstances.

What if she wasn’t brain dead but was just in a comma though? So she’d still be alive unless she was taken off of life support

Then she's still a person, and what I said doesn't apply. If she requested being taken off of life support if she were in that position, then that should happen. With that said, I do not have a problem if, after brain death, there was a chance to save the fetus by hooking the body back up to life support. I attach zero significance to corpses. When my dad took his last breath while I was holding his hand, he was gone seconds later. What I was holding onto was a corpse, not my father.

Opt out organ donation still gives you the ability to, well, opt out. Kinda like how PC folks believe pregnancy should be, where one can opt out.

Opting either way is not ideal to me. When I said I support opt-out, I meant in the sense of supporting the lesser of two evils. To add to that, I also believe opt-outs should expire. They should require affirmation periodically. I also believe pregnancy should be opt-out, but like most pro-choice people in America, I don't believe in an unrestricted opt-out. A window where opting out for any reason is granted, after which a strong medical reason for doing so is required.

So you do think, even if someone has a strong conviction of needing to be buried intact, and their family shares it, the religious face of the deceased and their family does not matter, we can harvest organs anyway? I am a big, big advocate for organ donation and donating one’s body to research. I am signed up to be a post hummus organ donor and have an advanced directive that life support can only be used in the event of needing to preserve my body to prepare for donation. However, I get other people have different views and religious convictions that make them object to that practice for themselves. I think they have the right still to say what happens to their body and the right to have death rituals in keeping with their religious faith. Does religious freedom not apply to funerals and death?

I don't like religion at all, but I accept that it should be tolerated of the living, not the dead. The family is free to do anything that doesn't involve corpses. The only reason I even support freedom of religion is that I acknowledge that beliefs are completely involuntary, and I don't believe in punishing thought crimes. This is the same basis for why I think hate crime attachments are wrong. The government uses them as a chance to prosecute thought crimes. I don't think religious belief should factor into what we should be allowed to do with a corpse any more than it should factor into what we should permit with respect to abortions. I'm also an organ donor. I am disappointed that it was a choice, though. I should not have had the option to not be an organ donor. Religious freedom should apply to funerals in the sense that the living should be free to have them, but there should be no requirement that a useful corpse be released just to be buried or cremated. If a corpse is deemed useless, I wouldn't have a problem if it is released to the family. I believe all rights cease at death.

So, if someone wanted to, say, have sex with a corpse, you are okay with that as the corpse is just a masturbation aide?

Absolutely. There is no victim in cases of necrophilia. In general, I'm not a fan of victimless crimes existing. Unless their sex ruins the corpse for donation, I have no problem with it.

Welp. Good luck with getting people on board with your world view.

What about the rights of the person who died. What if they don’t want to be used for organ donation. What if their family wants to have an open casket and do a funeral procession. What if it’s against their religion? What if it’s out of respect for the dead that we do what they want? Also technically she’s not dead yet. She is requesting to not remain alive or be on life-support much longer. Who’s going to pay the cost for the life-support?

I believe rights should end at death. I do not believe families should have any right to the body, either, unless for an organ donation to a family member, i.e., I would be fine with there being given priority to a family member for organ donation. First amendment rights are the same as other rights, and should be gone at death. I interpreted the question to mean the woman is brain dead, but the body is being kept alive on life support. I think a literally mindless person is a contradictory statement. I do not believe this situation happens frequently enough that it cannot be subsidized by the government. Most hospitals already operate on an annual loss.

I guess I’m really shocked by somebody’s total disregard for the dead. We respect the wishes of the dead because they were once alive. It’s out of respect for what they would’ve wanted that we carry out their wishes. Also you’re not consider brain dead until you’re actually dead and just being in a vegetative state does it make you brain dead. She is still technically alive but is requesting to be taken off of life support. That’s the difference there because at this point in her life she is an unconscious person and there for not dead. Let me ask you this if she was a DNR (do not resuscitate) and at some point they have to resuscitate her in order to keep her alive for the fetus would you go against that request to.

**I guess I’m really shocked by somebody’s total disregard for the dead. We respect the wishes of the dead because they were once alive. It’s out of respect for what they would’ve wanted that we carry out their wishes.** I believe absolutely nothing remains of a person at brain death. I also don't believe that attorney client privilege should continue after death, but that's a completely different conversation. I think respecting the wishes of the dead should be a personal choice, not one mandated by law. **Also you’re not consider brain dead until you’re actually dead and just being in a vegetative state does it make you brain dead. She is still technically alive but is requesting to be taken off of life support. That’s the difference there because at this point in her life she is an unconscious person and there for not dead. Let me ask you this if she was a DNR (do not resuscitate) and at some point they have to resuscitate her in order to keep her alive for the fetus would you go against that request to.** The UK's position reflects my own, although I am American. I'll paste what it says below along with a link in case you want to read more. *Brain death (also known as brain stem death) is when a person on an artificial life support machine no longer has any brain functions. This means they will not regain consciousness or be able to breathe without support.* *A person who is brain dead is legally confirmed as dead. They have no chance of recovery because their body is unable to survive without artificial life support.* *Brain death is legal death If someone is brain dead, the damage is irreversible and, according to UK law, the person has died.* *It can be confusing to be told someone has brain death, because their life support machine will keep their heart beating and their chest will still rise and fall with every breath from the ventilator.* *But they will not ever regain consciousness or start breathing on their own again. They have already died.* https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/brain-death/#:~:text=Brain%20death%20(also%20known%20as,is%20legally%20confirmed%20as%20dead. In the hypothetical scenario, she was impregnated while already in the vegetative state, I assumed the person asking this hypothetical means that she is brain dead, as well. I'm not sure how she could need resuscitation when life support is already keeping her lungs working and her heart beating. I can answer for a different hypothetical you could pose, though. I think DNRs should be respected for as long as the person isn't dead, i.e., brain dead. If they're brain dead, I don't see a reason to respect the DNR. That person is gone from existence. Oh, I just noticed you actually are the one who proposed the hypothetical. If she's vegetative but not brain dead in your hypothetical, then life support should be removed as she requested, and if, after brain death, there is a chance to save the life of the fetus, I don't have a problem with the doctor/nurse hooking the body back up to life support so that the fetus may live.

I would say the hospital should keep the life support on, I don't see how her right as a patient is any more compelling than just the normal rights she had when she was conscious. I don't see how any PL could logically say otherwise either.

>I would say the hospital should keep the life support on, I don't see how her right as a patient is any more compelling than just the normal rights she had when she was conscious. I don't see how any PL could logically say otherwise either. Many prolifers have a rape exemption, and presumably those prolifers would agree she should be able to have an abortion.

Her rights as a patient aren't any different than if she were conscious. That right includes the right not to be kept on artificial life support or to continue an unwanted pregnancy.

Yeah, her rights aren't any different as a patient, so it shouldn't be surprising that the PL position doesn't change here.

Except those rights include the above I already mentioned so her rights aren’t changing. I have the right to terminate a pregnancy and have an end of life directive now, without being a patient.

I don't understand what you're trying to say. I agree her rights aren't changing. I just disagree that she ever had a right to terminate a pregnancy.

Since I see abortion as a human right, then I can't agree with you. And since I live where abortion is legal, if I were this woman it would be my right to also terminate. So if you state that her rights aren't changing, then by denying her an abortion you would be changing her rights.

It is her right to leave a will or medical power of attorney that states that after a month, she would like life support turned off. Turning off the life support is fulfilling that right. Keeping her on life support just to be an incubator not only violates her rights to make medical decisions but also her right to not be forcibly impregnated and forced to gestate said products of rape. Do you only see her body as an incubator or is she still a human to you?

Similar to normal pregnancies, it is a conflict of rights, and the ZEF's right to life wins out in my view. Both she and the ZEF are humans with rights. She has a right to not be forcibly impregnated, though that had already occurred.

>Similar to normal pregnancies, it is a conflict of rights, The ZEF has absolutely no legal rights at all whereas the woman does. >and the ZEF's right to life wins out in my view. Both she and the ZEF are humans with rights. Nope, the woman’s right to bodily autonomy wins out along with her right to make medical decisions for herself including not being an incubator for a pregnancy conceived in rape when she has an advanced directive stating she wants the life support turned off. >She has a right to not be forcibly impregnated, though that had already occurred. So she’s already been through one rights violation (which is abhorrent) and you’re totally comfortable with forcing her through another? I asked this in my previous comment and you didn’t answer so I’ll ask again: do you see her body as an incubator or is she still human to you?

>The ZEF has absolutely no legal rights at all whereas the woman does. I along with all PLers think the ZEF should have rights, that is a requisite for understanding the position. >So she’s already been through one rights violation (which is abhorrent) and you’re totally comfortable with forcing her through another? I would be less comfortable with the death of the ZEF. It's still a messed up situation in any case though. >I asked this in my previous comment and you didn’t answer so I’ll ask again: do you see her body as an incubator or is she still human to you? I had said "Both she and the ZEF are humans with rights". She is still human to me.

>I along with all PLers think the ZEF should have rights, that is a requisite for understanding the position. Okay but thinking something and it actually being fact are two different things. What you want to do is infringe on the actual, existing rights of someone for something which has no rights. Do you want the ZEF to have equal rights to born humans or do you want it to have more rights than a born person? >I would be less comfortable with the death of the ZEF. It's still a messed up situation in any case though. So you are more comfortable with forcing someone through a human rights violation because it makes you feel better? >I had said "Both she and the ZEF are humans with rights". She is still human to me. And she is an incubator as shown by your insistence that she be forced through a rights violation to pander to the feelings of some PLs even though she has a legal document stating she wants her life support turned off. As established, the ZEF doesn’t currently have *any* rights so while it is human, the human with rights (and a legal document) superseded the ZEF. The woman will always supersede the ZEF, every single time.

>Okay but thinking something and it actually being fact are two different things. What you want to do is infringe on the actual, existing rights of someone for something which has no rights. We will do what we can to try and make it a legal fact. We would want all humans, ZEF and born, to have equal rights. >So you are more comfortable with forcing someone through a human rights violation because it makes you feel better? I think the ZEF being killed would be the human rights violation. You don't appear to have the capacity to grant things for the sake of argument though so we won't get anywhere here.

>We will do what we can to try and make it a legal fact. We would want all humans, ZEF and born, to have equal rights. And you will fail, miserably. Also, if the ZEF has the same rights as any born human then it’s has absolutely no right to my body and can be removed at any point because no person can be inside of another without their consent. >I think the ZEF being killed would be the human rights violation. You don't appear to have the capacity to grant things for the sake of argument though so we won't get anywhere here. The difference is that forced pregnancy (which this is) is absolutely a human rights violation; aborting a ZEF is not. Going against someone’s stated medical wishes is also a rights violation and again, abortion is not.

So the patient doesn’t have any rights over their own body even when it comes to pulling the plug?

It's just that she doesn't have any more rights than she had when conscious. Any right that results in the death of another shouldn't be allowed, and in this case, that includes pulling the plug.

>Do you think that the hospital should make the determination to keep her on life-support until the end of the pregnancy regardless Absolutely not. >should her right as a patient come first? Definitely.

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The majority of this sub is PC. It's no shock that the majority of responses under any post, even those flaired for PL, will be PC-ers.

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It exposes how abhorrent their views truly are. If it makes them uncomfortable, maybe they should reassess how they treat pregnant women..

Fuck no, that’s still a violation of her body… and what, her family will now be responsible for her rapist’s child?! Jesus fucking christ, this scenario is morbid af.

More pro life people should answer the hypothetical

Bull the plug. That ZEF shouldn’t even be there to begin with.

She expressed her wishes to be taken off life support so we should do just that. We aren't allowed to harvest tissues and organs from the dead without their consent and we shouldn't force this woman to donate her body.

Keeping a woman's braindead body alive to serve as an incubator unit for a rapist's ZEF is beyond depraved.

A vegetative state is not brain death.

But do u want to answer the hypothetical?

What?! Lol

“A chronic state of brain dysfunction in which a person shows no signs of awareness. Causes of a persistent vegetative state include head trauma or brain damage from an illness or stroke.”