{"id":258278,"date":"2021-12-03T16:40:56","date_gmt":"2021-12-03T22:40:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=258278"},"modified":"2021-12-03T16:41:09","modified_gmt":"2021-12-03T22:41:09","slug":"supreme-court-sotomayor-living-preborn-brain-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/supreme-court-sotomayor-living-preborn-brain-dead\/","title":{"rendered":"YIKES: Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor compares living, preborn children to ‘brain dead’ people"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Supreme Court heard<\/a> oral arguments this week for Dobbs v. Jackson Women\u2019s Health Organization<\/em>, which could potentially overturn Roe v. Wade<\/em>. The case examines Mississippi’s 15-week abortion restriction. The decisions of Roe v. Wade<\/em> and Planned Parenthood v. Casey<\/em> respectively made abortion a constitutional right, and set \u201cviability<\/a>\u201d as the standard for when abortion can and cannot be restricted.<\/p>\n

While the ability to feel pain does not determine the humanity of a living being, the issue of fetal pain has, in recent years, become increasingly influential as scientific evidence has become clearer about when a preborn child may suffer during an abortion. Preborn children younger than 24 weeks gestation \u2014 currently considered the standard of viability, though premature babies have survived as young as 21 weeks \u2014 routinely receive anesthesia<\/a> during prenatal surgeries, specifically to prevent the child from experiencing pain. The latest research indicates that preborn children can potentially feel pain as early as eight weeks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yet for Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the response to pain from a preborn child is apparently no different than what she termed as a \u00a0“brain dead” person reflexively responding to stimuli. She said<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Virtually every state defines brain death, as death. Yet, the literature is filled with episodes of people who are completely and utterly brain dead responding to stimuli. There’s about 40 percent of dead people who, if you touch their feet, the foot will recoil. There are spontaneous acts by dead brain people. So I don’t think that a response to — by a fetus necessarily proves that there’s a sensation of pain or that there’s consciousness.<\/em><\/p>\n

The American Academy of Neurology defines<\/a> “brain death” this way: “… brain death has occurred when the irreversible loss of all functions of the entire brain, including the brainstem, has been determined by the demonstration of complete loss of consciousness<\/strong> (coma), brainstem reflexes<\/strong>, and the independent capacity for ventilatory drive<\/strong> (apnea), in the absence of any factors that imply possible reversibility.” (emphasis added)<\/p>\n

In other words, Sotomayor claimed “brain dead” or “dead” people react reflexively to stimuli. This is false, because by definition<\/em>, those people are not dead if they are responding even reflexively to stimuli<\/em>. It is clear that Sotomayor was disastrously wrong about this.<\/p>\n

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J\/SOTOMAYOR: "There is about 40% of dead people who if you touch their feet, the foot will recoil. There are spontaneous acts by dead-brain people. So I don't think that a response to- by a fetus necessarily proves that there's a sensation of pain or that there's consciousness." pic.twitter.com\/wLg6P5z369<\/a><\/p>\n

— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) December 1, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n