Scientists Restore Walking After Spinal Cord Injury
Spinal cord damage blocks the routes that the brain uses to send messages to the nerve cells that control walking. Until now, doctors believed that the only way for injured patients to walk again was to re-grow the long nerve highways that link the brain and base of the spinal cord. For the first time, a UCLA study shows that the central nervous system can reorganize itself and follow new pathways to restore the cellular communication required for movement. The lead researcher said, "This pessimistic view [that severe injury to the spinal cord means permanent paralysis] has changed over my lifetime, and our findings add to a growing body of research showing that the nervous system can reorganize after injury."
Whoever modded this nonsense insightful should be beaten with a biology textbook. I have a nice big expensive one from my college days which I would donate to this worthy cause.
Inside the womb, the fetus receives nutrients from the mother, and partially depends on the mothers systems for waste elimination (fetuses do urinate and defecate in utero). But guess freakin' what, delivery doesn't change that too much. The newborn still depends on the mother for pretty much every need except for oxygen.
What biological process of the fetus is regulated by the mother ? There's a little bit of hormonal interaction going on to keep the growth rate in check, but apart from that, please name the processes you're talking about. The fetus controls its own movement, has its own circulatory system, sleep/wake cycles, whatever. Your statements are pure and simple nonsense. Superstitutious, unfounded, unscientific nonsense.
to being outside the mother's body, breathing on it's own, an "individual", a "person" for the first time.
The fetus is an "individual" a few weeks after conception. If you divide it after that, it dies.
As someone who watched his daughter being born, I can tell you it's a very important moment. Oh, it's wonderful to see that ultrasound, but is it a person? Nunh-uh.
I feel sorry for your daughter.
In my view, the state of being completely within, enveloped by, the mother's body is very much a state of "belonging" to the mother.
Hate to tell you this, but the inside of the uterus is considered "outside" by the body. Just like the inside of your intestine or your mouth. The interface to the outside is a mucuous membrane - which you don't find anywhere on inside/inside boundaries.
For that reason, I give the mother, the vessel, the owner of that fetus the right to decide its disposition. No one else.
Hate to break it to you, but there's no legal right to control what's in your body. For a reality check, try smuggling weapons or drugs in a body cavity of your choice (or even implanted). The judge will laugh at you after you get busted.
So the answer to "when does a fetus become a person?" is: "When the mother says it does."
So we go back to legally drowning the little suckers in a bucket of ice water if they're not wanted after birth ?
As a father of a beloved child, 19 now, sleeping about 30 feet away from me, upstairs, right now, I can tell you just how insignificant the act of fatherhood is until the baby emerges from the mother's body.
You must not have been around your wife a lot during pregnancy. Were you really that busy ? As the father of two kids, I can tell you that I really pity your daughter and that you've probably missed a lot of interesting experiences during those nine months.
Do you get that? It's a woman's fetus.
It's part of no one but itself. Even the womans body would immediately attack and destroy it as it would any foreign object, if there weren't measured in place to keep the two systems as separate as possible while still allowing nutrient and waste exchange.
I can't believe that on a slashdot, unscientific crap like this gets modded insightful just because it pleases political agendas. Go ahead, mod me flamebait or whatever again, all you guys who don't have a clue about biology. Show your ignorance, I don't care.