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

[___________________]

Stopping the organs from functioning would be the best option. It only feels like a tough call to make because it looks like a human baby. Plants are all alive but people have no problem killing them and eating them. I wouldn't want to be in the parents' shoes.

 

[Cambrius]

I'd raise it. I might need a kidney someday.

 

[Sacman]

I'd raise it. I might need a kidney someday.

xD

as funny as it is... that's a pretty legitimate point... assuming that it won't die and raising it would be cheaper than buying a kidney off the black market... I mean why not? it's hardly a person without a brain ust a lump of flesh and organs, which could be useful in saving the life of an actualy person one day...

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

I'm not my heart too? My liver? My arms and legs? Those things are working in the baby, albeit not optimally without the brain. It's absurd to say those parts of the body are 'nothing'.

Depending on what you meant when you're talking about "me", "you" and so on. If you're talking about it on the conscious (and subconscious) level, the brain is all there is to us. Including basic function of the organs, which wouldn't be doing shit had that vegetable not developed a brain stem.

And yet that vegetable is 'doing shit' - it's breathing, pumping blood, living. That's a form of intelligence in itself. The essence of the human body isn't consciousness.

 

[Beffudled Sheep_v1legacy]

It has no emotions. It has no thought. It can't feel.
A human's most important part is our highly developed and complex brain. Without it we pretty much aren't human.
I'd kill the poor thing. I feel so bad for that child and any other brainless children but why keep them alive at all? They can breathe, work their heart, blink and digest but tney can't do anything else. They're a vegetable with open eyes. Keeping it alive would be pointless since they'd never ever be able to grow a brain, or be able to think, or do anything.

Keeping it alive would just seem selfish on my part.

 

[A.A.K]

I don't even have to think about this. No.

I also wouldn't raise a child who was mentally handicapped.
I wouldn't kill it if it has brain function, but I wouldn't raise it. I'd leave it for adoption.

I'm broken like that.

 

[metagaia]

I'd raise it. I might need a kidney someday.

xD

as funny as it is... that's a pretty legitimate point... assuming that it won't die and raising it would be cheaper than buying a kidney off the black market... I mean why not? it's hardly a person without a brain ust a lump of flesh and organs, which could be useful in saving the life of an actualy person one day...

I think you might have the perfect compromise there.

Donate the baby to medical science (the lack of brain would be perfect for certain experiments as a "control" subject). The thing would feel nothing or next to nothing, so the ethical issue is eliminated.

This also means that if me and my partner sired then gave away this thing, we could work on creating Mk II, so we could devote our proper attention to giving a new life some decent happiness.

 

[barbzilla]

The only thing I can think of in this scenario would be to keep the baby alive and treat it well, but if the hospital had a baby born with the same blood type and anti-bodies, but was either lacking an organ or had a damaged organ, I'd allow the baby to donate said organ to give that child a healthy chance at life. If I knew that my baby could save another baby (provided my babe had no brain), I would gladly make that sacrifice. After all, it all comes down to quality of life, and this child wouldn't have much of one. At least not one that it could appreciate.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

And yet that vegetable is 'doing shit' - it's breathing, pumping blood, living. That's a form of intelligence in itself. The essence of the human body isn't consciousness.

How many times are you gonna have to be fucking told that it has a brain stem?

And no, the simple act of pumping blood or having living cells to oneself is not intelligence. Not in any colloquial sense, anyways; it'd be good if you defined what you mean when you say that. Trees do similar stuff too, but I think it'd be quite the stretch to call them intelligent.

I don't agree with you. I don't remember trees fucking up the world and making it a living hell. Even the workings of a single cell are far more complex and intricate than what conscious thought is capable of. We aren't clever by any means, we just think we are.

 

[Strazdas]

1. its impossible to be without a brain and alive.
2. i wluld prevent a birth of such child. we have a way fo see them before birth you know.
3. in a hyphotetical situation of alternative universe where such is posible i would kill it.

a child without higher function brain - kill, there is no point in prolonging its suffering.
donation to science was also a good suggestion, but frankly it didnt even came to mind.

 

[BristolBerserker]

I think we should introduce a sparta rule for instances like this. Now which mountain to leave them on.

 

[J Tyran]

I wonder if the child suffered, sapience isn't required for physical discomfort and how much do we really know about the brain anyway. There was a women who lost most of her brain and yet she was a fully functioning person with only slight signs of brain damage.

To think some people try and say the focus of this is that the child is a "drain on resources" is appalling. There should only be two issues, firstly does the child suffer and what quality of life does it have? Secondly what impact does it have on the family and their quality of life? Neither of which I have an answer too, the question is to complicated with little info.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I find it hard to believe he "literally" has no brain. I'm sure there's at least some vestigial organ resembling a "normal" brain somewhere in there. Is the kid literally brainless, or are we talking something like Down Syndrome, where it's a chromosome issue? I've lived with several close people "suffering" from Down Syndrome and I tell you not for a single solitary moment would I consider sacrificing a person because he or she suffers from it. On a general note, cases such as those mean you lead an awkward social life (as well as need constant care from others to properly survive) but it doesn't undermine the preciousness of their lives not one iota.

Being literally "brainless", on the other hand... well, if such is the case (the video doesn't make it too clear)... you wouldn't even be sentient to begin with. Screw social faux pas and needing care: you would have no sentience, no knowledge or awareness of life, no memory storage, no personality growth. You would never enjoy nor suffer. You would be technically alive and that would be it. People in a vegatitive state, or a comma, or paraplegics would enjoy a better quality of life.

 

[Marcus Kehoe]

I can't answer that, it something that I probably couldn't answer even then.