<p>What about people on various forms of life support?</p>
<p>^ I don’t believe in most life support. It’s keeping a body here that isn’t meant to be.</p>
<p>The technical definition is “reproduce”. Romani’s statement was false in that respect which is why I modified it slightly, when I quoted her.</p>
<p>Here are the official biological requirements to be considered living: need to be able to grow, needs to have some degree of organization in it’s structure, needs to be able to reproduce independently with out a host, respond to stimuli, composed of cells, and have metabolic processes.</p>
<p>romani: [Belgian</a> Man Conscious During 23-Year Coma : Discovery News](<a href=“http://news.discovery.com/human/belgian-man-coma-consciousness.html]Belgian”>http://news.discovery.com/human/belgian-man-coma-consciousness.html)</p>
<p>^ Would you really want to live that way for 23 years without being able to move or anything? </p>
<p>And my dad was in a coma so don’t try to play off with stories like that. </p>
<p>meadow, did you misquote me? I’m confused as to what you’re saying.</p>
<p>Romani, I personally would not, but that isn’t to say others wouldn’t. Just because many people would not want to be on life support doesn’t mean you should pull the plug on all of them. I’m all for abortion, but if they discovered that young fetuses have some sort of thought process and consciousness, I’d have to rethink it.</p>
<p>I mean when I said I agreed with you I said reproduce/survive, because survive isn’t really accurate. Think of any host organism like a tapeworm; they’re still considered living. Sorry I never quoted you, simply agreed.</p>
<p>^ It’s still not life unless they can live on their own. My own personal belief (and yes, I do think it is wrong to keep people on life support). If you believe in God then believe that He meant for them to die already and humans are keeping them artificially alive. If you do not believe in God then believe that nature already meant for this individual to pass away (I do not believe in God). </p>
<p>And btw, they’ve already shown that pretty young fetuses dream.</p>
<p>I always thought about human life about having more to do with mental continuity than physical continuity.</p>
<p>What could a fetus dream if it hasn’t had any experiences or even visions to base them on?</p>
<p>Lolwut? Ok, no, that’s just ridiculous. So you’re basically saying all parasites should be considered non-living. Just no.</p>
<p>As to the second statement, “dreaming” can mean various things. Link to actual science paper, so I can read and interpret it myself, otherwise I don’t consider your statement valid.</p>
<p>Hm. What about viruses, which are pretty much non-living?</p>
<p>^^ It is not human life unless they can give on their own. Sorry, human was implied.</p>
<p>^^Yes they are not really a live, what was the relevance again?</p>
<p>Oh restriction to just humans. That’s just plain illogical. If you’re talking about in terms of survival and living humans are at the same level as other living organisms in those terms. Making those type restrictions simply doesn’t work.</p>
<p>If this were a mental issue, however, your point could be valid.</p>
<p>[Fetal</a> Psychology](<a href=“http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/tul/psychtoday9809.html]Fetal”>Fetal Psychology)</p>
<p>I have also seen more research that says they dream at 28 weeks or before, but that is just the first article I found. I don’t really care to prove it either way so I’m not looking further.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>We’re talking about human abortions. So… restricting it just to human survival is logical…</p>
<p>just for the record, im not looking to disprove you, ive never heard of that</p>
<p>^ It was on the Health channel about a month ago. A story about it. I actually know very little about fetuses in the womb, I just remember that tidbit.</p>
<p>Hmm that’s really old. 10+ I’m not sure if I would consider it reliable. Either way, it still isn’t thinking of it’s own thought, aka no potential. You could argue from a genetic standpoint, but then that could always be re-created no. What truly distinguishes one twin(organism)from another is their environment, of which a a fetus has no exposure to.</p>
<p>It still shows mental functions (dreams require semi-complex thought). Dreams are not life experiences BTW, they are random bits from your brain that try to make a cohesive story.</p>