[jwalsh07]

Palmer, you're hohum arbitrary choosing of times in the human continuum when it is OK to to kill the baby might come back to bite you in the ass. Perhaps someday they will decide that a minimum number of neurons must be present or else they discorporate you. Since the number of neurons present in the neocortex at birth is high tide, you best be careful out there. A touch of Alzheimers, a dip below low tide and its off to the discorporation warehouse for you.

[MHGinTN]

In the 'brave new world' you've hinted on, the ned will be just as the beginning, the less than whole ones will be for harvesting useful parts for the more whole ... a truly frightening spectre.

[palmer]

Hopefully they'll read my posts here and realize my brain is worth preserving even in a decrepit state. But seriously your point is well taken. I can appeal to empathy or any other emotion I want, but eventually the law could be written to require a minimum number neurons for protection. Nobody would necessarily kill me, but they could legally leave me in out the woods.

It's also true that the most vulnerable, brain damaged infants are worthy of protection even with no chance to live a normal life or no chance to even live. They are just as vulnerable as me with my alzheimers deserving of at least sympathy. Whether the law should require severely brain-damaged infants to be carried to term would be one of the hardest abortion questions to answer. I think we would have to protect all fetuses whether "normal" or "brain damaged" because I think they would have to be at the brain function stage in order to make that determination, and at that stage they should be protected.