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From: decot@cwruecmp.UUCP (Dave Decot)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: Society Needs a Definition of "Human"
Message-ID: <1103@cwruecmp.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 13-Mar-84 20:04:01 EST
Article-I.D.: cwruecmp.1103
Posted: Tue Mar 13 20:04:01 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 18-Mar-84 08:05:02 EST
References: <697@houxz.UUCP>
Organization: CWRU Computer Engr. Cleveland, Ohio
Lines: 22

I submit the following criteria for deciding whether or not an object is
human, assuming the term "conception" is generally agreed upon:
    
    If the object originates from a conception between two gametes,
    at least one of which is of \homo spaiens/, inside a woman or
    otherwise, then while it has any capacity to observe its environment
    and maintain recorded information internally, the object is human.

    If the object loses permanently either of these capacities,
    it is no longer human.

    An object is not human until it acquires these capabilities.

This definition incorporates my view that human life is pointless if it
has no individual record of experience, and worth very much if it does.

Permanent cessation of electrical brain activity is the legal definition
of death, and is a reasonable one to apply to the question of when a human
being starts.  There is no "being" if there is nobody to experience the
feeling of "being".

Dave Decot		 "Politicians are human, too."