Life Begins When the Fetus Functions Neurologically

During the few weeks of conception and gastrulation, the fetus's brain is not functioning. But around the middle weeks of pregnancy, the fetus begins to produce brain waves. Many people have different views on if this is correct or not; there for I started backwards. "It is said by the medical profession and supported by legal and some ethical consensus that if a person's entire brain is dead, the person is dead" says the University of Southern California, Health Sciences Department. Therefor, it is debated that if as soon as a brain no longer works, we are considered dead, than as soon as the brain begins to work, we are considered alive. This goes along with writing in Joseph P. Hester's book, when the brain develops the fetus is considered alive just as when the brain is not functioning or such the fetus is considered dead. There are also other theories that correspond to region. In Joseph P. Hester's book, The Ten Commandments: A Handbook of Religious, Legal, and Social Issues, it states under the sixth commandment (thou shall not kill), "It is not until sometime after twenty-eight weeks of gastrulation that the fetal brain has the capacity to carry on the same range of neurological activity as the brain in a full-term newborn" (Hester 231). This is suggesting that after the neurological process is complete the brain is equivalent to the brain of a newly born child, therefor a developed brain allows an organism to think and act, thus pronouncing it living.