When does a person become a corpse?

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Naturally, this is a thread about abortion.

But I thought I'd back us into it, this time.

My girlfriend and I were talking about death the other day,
and we were on opposite sides of the argument of the classification of "person".
I said that a human body ceases to be a person the moment after death if it cannot be resuscitated.
She said the dead body is still a person.
We both agreed that a dead human body is a corpse.
And U.S. law agrees with that.

Well, if the law considers the ceasing of life in a human body to mean that that person no longer exists,
then life is clearly the key ingredient to legal personhood.
If you have a physical or mental disability or functional inability -- no matter how severe -- you're still a person, with all the rights thereof, as far as the law is concerned.
So, a disabled person who is in a completely-vegetative state still has full legal status as a human being,
while an otherwise fully able-bodied adult who has just died is not a legal person anymore.
What changed? Only the presence of life.

Why, then, is a human fetus not legally considered a human being?
Because it's not fully developed? No, that can't be it, because recently-deseased adult corpses are
fully developed, and yet they are in no way considered by legal definition to be human beings.
And indeed, severly disabled people are considered to be human beings, even though, like fetuses, they are
not physically or mentally competent to function as independent self-sustainers or self-providers.

Two words: Double standard.

The answer is that fetuses are inconvenient. They are often terribly inconvenient.
And that is why the law allows us to kill them, by first classifying them as not human, to make us feel better about it.
Hitler made himself and the Germans feel better about killing non-"Aryans" by called them sub-human, and racists of all kinds use that same hate-justifying argument to this day. It's obviously untrue, but it makes them sound less insane.

But the legal status of people on life support machines is different. Their closest relative can make the decision to have them switched off.

As ouinon has already stated, legal personhood isn't just a matter of life but also of functioning. Frankly, given the fact that the same people who allow for abortion also probably believed in the legality of letting Terry Schiavo die, I don't think that there is a contradiction in their beliefs.

Frankly Ragtime, the issue involved here isn't just when the US law defines human life as being but what the disputing parties think about what life is. Frankly though, I think that a Godwin in the first post is too soon.

Generally, the modern status of "dead" is brain-death - when the EEG flatlines.

Now, if you can find me a way to reliably check the EEG of a fetus...

Family members can pull the plug on people in vegetative or non-recuperative states. You cannot do so with a fully functioning human being.

I'm not sure that we agree on what life is, or what a vegetative state is. If a person is brain dead (all higher brain function gone) but the brainstem is intact, that person can survive years and years. They will never have another thought. To me, the person at that point is dead, although the organs are alive.

Depending on what type of vegetative state a person is in, they may not have full legal status as a person. At a minimum, a parent, spouse, or other party can be appointed to take over making medical decisions (which can include the removal of artificial life support).

Even after a person is declared dead, the cells, tissues and organs may be alive for some time. If they are taken out of the body, is that person still alive? Should an organ transplant recipient inherit the property of the person who lives on inside them?

If they're permanently unconscious. And they're still considered human beings, whereas fetuses are not, even though most fetuses are healthy, while permanently unconscious people on life support are not healthy at all. It's a double standard.

I didn't know you view disabled people as less than human, AG.

No, its two different standards for two different situations.

...then we can proceed from there. But until then, better err on the "not killing an innocent baby" side. Ya think?

And medical surveilance technology is constantly improving -- why can't people wait for the sharper images and finer data that keep on improving before willing the barbaric draconian act of killing what might well be a sacred human life? Oh, I forgot, life isn't sacred to liberals. It's ALL relative. So, sorry for the "sacred life" comment -- you people don't believe in that. I won't let it happen again.
Next step: Eugenics, anyone?

dead people are still people
and should be treated with the
same dignity they recieved in life.

Unless you're a woman you lack a valid opinion
on abortion regardless of your positon. Its hard for
me to even fathom the level of hipocracy necessary
for a man to dictate a womans right to abort.

And is life sacred to all people in the anti-abortion group that calls themselves 'pro-life' ? I don't believe it is. In many such people, there is a fanatical determination to protect the fetus, and then to allow anything to happen (neglect, starvation, war) after the fetus emerges from the womb. Because the dark secret of the 'pro-life' movement is that most consider children to be property of the parents, while the killing of innocent civilians in war (like bombing Nagasaki) can be 'good'.

Last edited by monty on 04 Apr 2008, 4:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Sort of like white people versus black people? Your implication that there are different classes of human beings with different rights to live leads me to the history of racist and other favoritism of one human over another as more fit to live.

And yet, you so easily fathom other countries attempting to dictate American policy.

An erroneous comparison.

America does far more of that by wielding the carrot and the stick to other countries to make policies harmonious with our own.