20 year ICU nurse.... The answer is NO! I have taken care of more than a few dead patients who were still pumping blood and breathing. The medical definition of death is the absence of brain activity. (“brain dead” IS dead) However this doesn’t really help the abortion debate because brain function starts at around 8…
Stephocles
stephocles
Generally, the metric by which life is measured from a medical perspective is by brain activity. That’s why we utilize CPR and AEDs to literally restart people’s hearts. A heart beat is important, but you can survive after it has stopped (as long as it’s restarted), and you can be dead but still have a pulse (being…
As someone noted on an earlier thread, if you put enough cardiac cells together in a petri dish, they’ll beat. I’ve seen it, it’s neat! It does not make the petri dish alive in my opinion.
Ugh, the KY situation is depressing as all get out. The shuttering of clinics and proposition (and fuck, passage) of other uber-restrictive bills—backed by men!!—across the country is so disheartening. The denial of our autonomy is gross and wrong; and it will only lead to higher mortality and poverty among women. The…
This made me laugh, but also cry. Feck.
I live in Humboldt County, which is largely rural... So yeah. Sucks ass.
The first time I met my sisters boyfriend, they drove up to my parents house and he had a big confederate flag on the back of his truck.
“Question for any medical professionals: is a heartbeat, in fact, the universal indicator of life?”
It’s a tragesty
No, how dare you, I would never dream of implying it.
At six weeks bones are only just starting to form. I consider bones to be pretty essential to viability.
We claim to despise them like everyone else, but when we’re alone in the car and they come on we sing along...
We’re kind of used to them.
What the hell IS on Joey’s head?
Beautifully said.
Canadians? Oh gods, we make ALL THE FUN of Nickelback.
To go old-school biology, the 7 signs of life are: motion, respiration, growth (from immature to adult form; regeneration of cells), reproduction, excretion of wastes, and intake/metabolism of nutrition, and response to stimuli. A living organism displays or is able to perform all (except sexually reproduction at…
Like others said, no, presence of a heartbeat alone does not indicate viability or being fully “alive”.
Women still die giving birth. Texas has the highest maternal mortality rate of all industrialized nations.