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Person 1: We check for brainwaves to see if someone’s dead, so a fetus without brainwaves isn’t alive. Person 2 (our hero): I agree the brain is a critical organ. But it’s not required for biological life. E.g., trees don’t have brains, but they are alive.

Trees Don’t Have Brains

Following fertilization, the zygote undergoes cellular reproduction, responds to stimuli, and converts food into energy. These are the sort of features that biologists look for to establish life, not brain activity. It’s debatable whether viruses are alive, but it seems pretty clear that a zygote is already biologically alive.

It may be helpful to emphasize that at this stage of the conversation, we aren’t yet saying anything philosophical about how valuable a zygote is or how we ought to treat zygotes. We’re just saying that biologically speaking, a zygote is a living organism.

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Our hero: A human fetus displays the key characteristics of life, such as cellular reproduction, responding to stimuli, and converting food into energy. It’s debatable whether viruses are alive, but it seems pretty clear that a human fetus is biologically alive.Our hero: The reason brain death matters is that it points to something more fundamental: the end of an integrated organism. When an adult’s brain totally stops working, he or she stops acting as a unit, even if there’s still living tissue.Person 1: We check for a heartbeat to see if someone’s dead, so a fetus without a heartbeat isn’t alive. Person 2 (our hero): I agree the heart is a critical organ. But it’s not required for biological life. E.g., flatworms don’t have hearts, but they’re alive.Person 1 (our hero): You and I equally deserve the right to life. So do all our friends. What do we have in common that makes us equal? Person 2: We all have brains. Person 1 (our hero): Hm. If that were the right explanation, mice would deserve the same right to life as us.
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