[Avodah] spurious correlation

[Zev Sero]

On 3/11/2011 3:13 PM, David Riceman wrote:
> Ought there to be any relation between a person's halachic opinion about brain death and about abortion?

It seems logical to me.  If the brain has enough activity that if the
person was at the end of his life you'd arrest anyone who cut him up for
spare parts, then kal vachomer if he's at the beginning of his life.
The earliest detectable brain activity (as far as I've been able to
gather) comes at 6 weeks, coincidentally (or not) close to Chazal's
40 days.  I'm sure "6 weeks" doesn't mean precisely 42 days, so there's
not necessarily even a small mismatch.


-- 
Zev Sero        If they use these guns against us once, at that moment
zev at sero.name   the Oslo Accord will be annulled and the IDF will
                 return to all the places that have been given to them.
		                            - Yitzchak Rabin