[BloodEagle]

I'm surprised that anyone can find a 'for the children' argument to be rational.

Hell, this situation doesn't even apply to that argument.  The fetus in question (if it is birthed) will be utterly doomed medically, fiscally, and paternally.

[DarkBasilisk]

I'm amazed at the sheer number of people lining up to say that they believe that people should have no right to decide what to do with their body after they die.

You said it... just... wow. But once again, american politics lately seems founded on the idea of one guy saying "I have no problem with this therefore none of you should"

But since this crowd doesn't seem to care about inflicting lasting psychological harm on the next of kin, we also have a more tangible issue to discuss : should this deceased woman produce a living child, who's going to be taking care of it? Or paying for this hospital stay for that matter?

Given the low likeliness of success (the circumstances for previous successful cases were more favorable than this woman), I imagine any fetus that did survive to birth may have severe health complications. But since Texas is forcing the development to go on without the consent of the surviving family, the family would have reasonably good arguments to make for saying they shouldn't be responsible for any of the cost of the attempt nor the raising of the subsequent child. There's a lot of money being thrown around here every day they're keeping this woman "alive," that could be spent treating people that actually want to live... Just the same as the money spent caring for an unwanted birth-defect riddled child.

[Lorric]

I'll just clarify that I'm not taking sides on the debate about the foetus.

[karajorma]

I'm surprised someone as coldly rational as you doesn't see it the other way. Really, you're just about the last person in the forum I thought would hold the view you do, never mind how strongly you seem to hold it.

I don't see why. I've always argued that people have the right to make their own decisions and shouldn't have the government needlessly impose its will on them.

Do I think that everyone should be giving up their organs upon death so that other people can live - absolutely.

Do I think that upon death the human body is just a pile of meat - yes.

Would I support an opt-out system for organs - definitely.

Do I think that the government should act as if this is true regardless of a person's wishes - absolutely not. A person has the right to decide what to do based on what they feel is right. Yes we should educate people into realising that they might be making the wrong decision, but it is never the place of the government to flat out decide that someone's wishes are wrong and overrule them. Once you start doing that you very quickly go to a very dark place because there are hundreds of examples of people making the wrong decisions where the government could also step in.

Let me give you an example, suppose someone writes a will leaving all their money to a cat sanctuary. Based on the argument you've given, that we must be coldly pragmatic about saving human lives, it would be perfectly reasonable for the government to step in and say "**** cats! We're giving this money to something that helps humans."
 The person is after all already dead, why should their wishes have any merit whatsoever?

[Lorric]

Do I think that the government should act as if this is true regardless of a person's wishes - absolutely not. A person has the right to decide what to do based on what they feel is right. Yes we should educate people into realising that they might be making the wrong decision, but it is never the place of the government to flat out decide that someone's wishes are wrong and overrule them. Once you start doing that you very quickly go to a very dark place because there are hundreds of examples of people making the wrong decisions where the government could also step in.

Let me give you an example, suppose someone writes a will leaving all their money to a cat sanctuary. Based on the argument you've given, that we must be coldly pragmatic about saving human lives, it would be perfectly reasonable for the government to step in and say "**** cats! We're giving this money to something that helps humans."
 The person is after all already dead, why should their wishes have any merit whatsoever?

Ah, I see where you're coming from. You're worried about an escalation. I can't say or know if there would be an escalation, I just feel it is deeply wrong for those organs to be going to waste and people to be dying needlessly.

I do believe people should be able to send their worldlies wherever they want to. At least they're going somewhere. Being put to some sort of use.

Back to what you said about education, we need that. It is something I feel strongly about, and I am an organ donor, but you know, I only actually got put on the register in 2013. The reason for this is it's something that almost never gets talked about. And when you're wandering around just doing your normal thing, it's not something you think about. Or likely want to think about, getting chopped up after you die. Eventually the stars aligned and it was in my mind when I needed to visit the doctor, and I got myself signed up while I was there. There had been several previous occasions when I'd visited the doctor and thought "oh, damn!" later on for not getting registered.

However, an opt-out process will remove the need for such education. Those that don't want to give badly enough will make it their business to opt out, while the rest will stay in. I saw this, Wales is already moving to opt-out. I don't know if England is following suit, hopefully it will.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-23143236

People support the idea in Northern Ireland:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-24628060

And there's this for Scotland:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-23275799

[Bobboau]

When you die, you are no longer a person, you do not exist, you are gone. this is why it is the worst possible thing. A person who does not exist, has no rights because there is no person there any more to have them, so yeah, once you are dead I don't really care about what happens to you because you are as extant as Santa Clause.

[General Battuta]

When you die, you are no longer a person, you do not exist, you are gone. this is why it is the worst possible thing. A person who does not exist, has no rights because there is no person there any more to have them, so yeah, once you are dead I don't really care about what happens to you because you are as extant as Santa Clause.

Dead bodies are of considerable emotional and cultural value to the people who're still alive, though.

[karajorma]

Ah, I see where you're coming from. You're worried about an escalation.

No, I'm not worried about an escalation. I'm using the example of an escalation to point out that it's wrong in the first place. You do have an absolute right while you are alive to say what should happen to your possessions (including your body) after you die. And if you don't believe that, then you should be anti-funeral cause everyone who can't be organ transplanted should be donated to medical science regardless of whatever they wish.

[swashmebuckle]

HESTON: SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!
PEOPLE: SERVES US RIGHT!

[666maslo666]

Let me give you an example, suppose someone writes a will leaving all their money to a cat sanctuary. Based on the argument you've given, that we must be coldly pragmatic about saving human lives, it would be perfectly reasonable for the government to step in and say "**** cats! We're giving this money to something that helps humans."

We actually do that, it is called taxes. The only difference is that the stealing is distributed more equally to not piss off people too much.

I do generally sympathise with these libertarian leaning arguments but not when it comes to matters of life and death. They are not sufficient to convince me and I think stealing money or organs and many other usualy ugly things can be justified then. Surely you can see why ethically this is not a black and white situation?

[karajorma]

I'm pretty sure charitable donations aren't taxed on death. Even if they are, I don't think they should be.

Not to mention that I don't think such a flippant answer really gets to the heart of the matter. Does the government have the right to decide what happens to your property after you die?

[MP-Ryan]

I'm pretty sure charitable donations aren't taxed on death. Even if they are, I don't think they should be.

Depends on the legal jurisdiction.  Generally-speaking for common law nations, if the recipient of a bequeathed asset has tax-exempt status, they pay no tax on the asset when it is received.

When you die, you are no longer a person, you do not exist, you are gone. this is why it is the worst possible thing. A person who does not exist, has no rights because there is no person there any more to have them, so yeah, once you are dead I don't really care about what happens to you because you are as extant as Santa Clause.

Wonderful. If you have no rights when you die, then I suppose the government can take all your assets - after all, you have no right to determine what happens to them.  While we're at it, we're going to let the local nutjobs drag your corpse around behind a truck for a few days for the hell of it.  After all, your family's wishes don't matter either because you no longer have any rights (and neither, by extension, do they apparently have any right concerning your corpse or your property).

People have rights when living, and a number of those rights continue or are legally passed to their families upon death.  Whether you agree with that is irrelevant (well, except that people would probably like your address so they can come take all your stuff when you die, your family be damned).  The State of Texas is trampling those Constitutionally-protected  and common law rights to advance a political agenda concerning their distate for abortion, which is also Constitutionally-protected.

Rights are one of the few things that actually are legally black-and-white:  either you believe government must respect and protect all rights, or you believe they do not have to respect or protect any rights - because history has quite clearly demonstrated that any government that manages to successfully trample one is eventually going to try to trample all of them.  This is one of the few areas where I agree with some Americans who champion the 2nd Amendment of their Constitution - you don't get to ignore or violate rights that you don't agree with.  You either change the Constitution or common law precedent, or you make sure any laws you do draft are compliant with the rights structure which they operate under.

[Lorric]

Ah, I see where you're coming from. You're worried about an escalation.

No, I'm not worried about an escalation. I'm using the example of an escalation to point out that it's wrong in the first place. You do have an absolute right while you are alive to say what should happen to your possessions (including your body) after you die. And if you don't believe that, then you should be anti-funeral cause everyone who can't be organ transplanted should be donated to medical science regardless of whatever they wish.

No, no, no. Funerals give people closure and peace. Plus, you could still have a funeral, then send the body to medical science. But medical science does well enough, I've never heard of a need for more bodies.

If you're not worried about an escalation, then why do you think it's wrong? If you have no one to give your possessions to, the government takes them. If you're not giving your organs to anyone, the government should take them.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

While you can "donate" your body you and by extension your family still own it.  After science is done with it it gets shipped back to the family for burial or cremation. 

[Kolgena]

So... in Texas, if the mother is deemed incompetent to make decisions for her/her child's health, who has "power of attorney" over it? The father? If so, why can't he abort if he damn well feels like it? To him, respecting the wishes of the mother may be more important than the birth of his child, especially if said child won't have a mother and may be handicapped.

I know nothing about Texas law, but the quoted lines say that you can't withhold life-saving patients to pregnant patients. Nothing is said about aborting fetuses from pregnant people on life support, then taking them off life support once they are no longer pregnant. I feel the law might have been put in place to protect families without enough money/insurance from losing a WANTED child because some hospital needed the bed for financial reasons.

Also, if the fetus hasn't aborted already, and that no details were given for how long the mother was hypoxic, it's very hard to say what its outcome will be. Could be anywhere from severely handicapped to 100% healthy. You'd need to watch and see later on in the pregnancy for problems.

The argument of mandatory organ donation is dumb. Sure, opt-out systems make a ton of sense and would save a lot of lives, but FORCING people to donate organs is an absurd idea for how much it infringes on your autonomy while alive.

As for "wasted utility" of letting bodies go to "waste", you must consider that the vast majority of people don't see death as a sterile emotionless event, especially when you take religion into account. If a family member dies, but gets the treatment that the rest of the family desires, you keep the survivors that much mentally healthier and more productive to society. Forcibly harvesting dead people might save some lives, but it would come at the cost of pissing off and drastically reducing the productivity of a large number of surviving family members and the people they disrupt as they fight legal battles or grieve longer than necessary.

[MP-Ryan]

So... in Texas, if the mother is deemed incompetent to make decisions for her/her child's health, who has "power of attorney" over it? The father? If so, why can't he abort if he damn well feels like it?

Because Texas.

No, seriously, that's the question that I've wanted answered since day 1, given the overarching federal legal framework.

[DarkBasilisk]

So... in Texas, if the mother is deemed incompetent to make decisions for her/her child's health, who has "power of attorney" over it? The father? If so, why can't he abort if he damn well feels like it?

Because Texas.

No, seriously, that's the question that I've wanted answered since day 1, given the overarching federal legal framework.

Well it's really, you can legislate whatever the hell you want until it gets challenged in court. Sometimes really stupid laws get injunctions really fast. Sometimes they don't. Technically the Texas State Legislature could pass a "legal to kill people named Bob" law and you get into some really ugly legal territory. You think i'm kidding? We haven't gone up to murder before but when you consider the various Sedition Acts (there have been more than one), we've passed some seriously unconstitutional stuff before and caused real world damage with it before the law got torn down in the courts or repealed.