Poll: Your child is born without a brain. Would you raise it regardless?

[Kuala BangoDango]

I'd take the kid to a country where cloning is legal and have him/her cloned. Hopefully, the second time, the baby finishes completely forming and even though the original child would probably die quickly they could at least "live on" in the second child.

Edit: Option number two would be to keep it alive long enough for science to figure out a process to make the brain finish growing or for science to develop a robot brain/AI and have the child be the worlds first actual cyborg.

 

[Easton Dark]

Oh god no I wouldn't, that's terrible...

Like, a really terrible thing that can happen, oh man. No, no thought, no feeling, no life, just sits there eating. Less than a newborn forever.

 

[Aaron Sylvester]

No, I wouldn't raise it because the logical half of my brain would tell me that raising such a child is only going to cause more pain to the whole family. No kind of heart ache could compare to being faced with the prospect of waking up any day to find your child dead. Every "happy" moment I spent with the child would only continue to rip apart at my emotions deep down.

But seeing as how I'm not a parent and don't know what it's like to have children, I don't think my opinion holds any weight.

 

[Hagi]

If I managed to become pregnant, after all these years, and the doctors told me there was something majorly wrong with my fetus; I'd have it aborted. This is something that was likely discovered in the womb, when the fetus was growing into a baby. Personally, I'd rather it not even come into existence, than have just a few years of suffering. Just because the parent can't let go, doesn't make suffering without any real sentience, a 'life'. Nor do I think it makes the parents 'heroes' (as cruel as that sounds). They've brought something into the world just to see it die. Nothing really makes it a person. It's just a mass. This is a depressing thread,....I'm going to bed.

Well... to make it a bit less depressing or perhaps even more, I'm not sure which.

I don't think he's capable of suffering. He might feel pain, but I doubt the parents are physically hurting he. But even then he won't have any memory of past pains and he certainly wouldn't be able to reflect on his own state of existence.

If he's even capable of feeling anything it's actually most likely that he's feeling halfway good. If his condition causes physical pain then his medication most like includes some form of analgesic and otherwise he's being fed as well as kept warm and comfortable.

It's not really a life but I doubt it's suffering either. The kid's just kinda there for a bit with whatever little consciousness the brain stem is capable of generating and then he's not, probably having never been able to form even the most basic concept of his own condition and thus no reason at all to feel any grief over it.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I would actually just donate it to a medical facility to find out how it is still alive.
FOR SCIENCE!

That actually seems like the most logical solution and what I would most likely do personally. I would assume there are ways to tell if the thing was developing properly (ie: with a brain) and if it looked like it wasn't going to be born with a brain I would have likely pushed for abortion. If it came out with an empty coconut though, I don't see myself being able to raise it and I would rather it go to science than be outright euthanized.

 

[Creator002]

Just, wow. I didn't think one could live without a brain. I guess the brain stem is what keeps your heart beating and lungs going. However, is that really a life? Does he have conscious thought?
Logically, I want to say kill him. To me, that's not a life. It's an existence.

 

[lunavixen]

snip

while the body is developing it is possible for the brain to create new connections (it is not common, especially with preexisting neural conditions), it's how some people who have severe brain traumas can recover at least partially, the body creates new connections to bypass the bad areas. Nickolas is a very rare case, most children born with anencephaly are still born or die shortly after birth, I went looking through my medical textbooks, and some children born with this condition may have reflexive responses to touch or sound, it may explain how Nickolas responded.

As for the original question, I would choose abortion (anencephaly can be detected fairly early in the pregnancy), if the child was carried to term, I would care for the child but sign a DNR (Do Not Resucitate), basically let nature take it's course.

 

[The_Echo]

Actually, I have prior, secondary experience in this particular area.

Some years ago, my sister had a child whose brain only ever developed the section that worked reflexes (that's what I was told, at least). She chose to raise it, and for the most part, it wasn't much different than raising a normal child (though extended stays in a hospice were common).

Didn't make it through the first year, though part of me feels it's probably better that way. Personally, I'm not sure what I'd do. I think that would be something to discuss thoroughly with the mother.

 

[manic_depressive13]

Personally, I'd rather it not even come into existence, than have just a few years of suffering. Just because the parent can't let go, doesn't make suffering without any real sentience, a 'life'.

How can something that lacks sentience possibly suffer?

 

[Lonewolfm16]

Yeah, death seems the best option in this case. I have always said that what makes a human valuble is the mind, they are fully capable of thought, emotion, expierence, memory, all the things that make living things more than bags of meat, and the things that makes humanity particulairly special. But without a brain there is no happiness, no expierence, no thought, no anything. They are, as far as my ethics are concerned, already dead in every way that matters. A tragedy, but one that shouldn't be allowed to continue.

 

[TheCinnamonBun]

whilst i find it a little disturbing that people are referring to the person as "it" rather than "him" or "her" i have to say that letting such an individual die is possibly the most humane thing possible, if i had a choice between dying peacefully or spending the rest of my days as a husk id choose the first option. as Creator002 has already said "that's not a life. It's an existence."

 

[Zakarath]

I'd kill it; if it has no brain, there's nothing to be gained from keeping it alive; our sentience is what make us beings to be valued. Just because it's a human-shaped blob of meat doesn't make it's life any more precious than that of the animals we regularly kill that would probably be smarter than it. Why invest any emotional attachment or resources in a creature so hopeless?

 

[VALOCARAPTOR]

so he was like a zombie from the walking dead (minus the eating humans) as in the first season they say that when zombies come back all they have is the stem left.
on a more serious note i think i would have to put it down

 

[Erttheking]

I'm not a doctor, but how the Hell can the Human body function without a brain? There's a reason you die when you get shot in the head.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

I think the brain is less important than people think it is. That is to say, it's incredibly important and probably essential, but it's not the one thing that "makes us human" like people are saying. You only have to look at the baby to see that. The organs do a lot of the work on their own without the need of the brain, which is quite amazing when you think about it.

 

[axlryder]

....

I feel like a bad person for saying this, but I'd keep it....

I'm sure there's a way to make money off of that sort of thing.

I'm not going to try to justify that thought process to make myself sound better, but I'm fairly certain the baby couldn't give less of a shit that I'd be exploiting it for personal gain. In fact, I doubt it really could give less of a shit about, well, anything really.

Also, there's that one chicken that lived purely with just its brain stem after its head was chopped off. I imagine the child would live a similar life. Not miserable, merely a life based purely on reflexive instincts. Many animals with very limited intelligence probably have a similar intellectual capacity and thus quality of life. In that sense, I don't view the child's existence as tragic; I view it as just a being born in a state similar to that of sponges or something (aside from lacking the reflexive faculties necessary for self-sustainability, which I doubt either being could consciously perceive anyway). Now, babies born with, say, Harlequin ichthyosis or something similar. Brrrr.

Merry Christmas.

 

[lacktheknack]

Apparently, it doesn't even suffer.

Also, it DOES have a brain stem, which is still a part of the brain.

I'd raise it. The child in question was acting like an extremely slow child, so it's a child, as far as I'm concerned. It wouldn't last very long, admittedly, but at least I won't have a personal feeling/potential case of child murder on my hands.

 

[lacktheknack]

I'm not a doctor, but how the Hell can the Human body function without a brain? There's a reason you die when you get shot in the head.

Massive head trauma causing irreversible damage to the brain, causing a million neurons to fire off like crazy, often killing the person through complete system failure. HOWEVER, there have been people who have survived shots/blows/<link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage>railroad spikes to the brain, and it's because they survive the first assault and didn't damage the REALLY critical stuff in your brain.

This baby had a brain stem, so "no brain" isn't accurate. It lived entirely on reflex, but it still had all the pieces of the brain required to keep its body going. It didn't suffer (from what I can tell), it just didn't understand anything. It was, for all intents and purposes, a functional non-sentient human.

Do with that what you will.