Again, define ‘serious congenital abnormality’ or ‘serious disability’

where do you draw the line?

Precisely, where do you draw the line hey? 😆

I think that perhaps the point being made bwaarp, is that if you have nursed your own premature child through those first torturously fragile months of life in a neonatal unit, the experiments conducted and journals written fade into a dim and meaningless irrelevance..

show a bit of humility can’t you kiddo..?

That doesn’t give those people any right to then ram their opinions based on that experience down other peoples throats. It was their choice to do that.

It flies in the face of reason and there lies my issue, we seem to be going back on the enlightenment. Reason, somewhere, seems to have been undermined.

“I have the right to tell other people how they should lead their lives and what to do because of my one experience” – yeah great, your one experience of global warming, homeopathy, health or whatever tops teams of scientists. Whooo!

EBM is fine. bwaarp. But I think you’ll have to produce a bit more evidence than you have so far, and stuff which has managed to be published in journals relevant to the field. And a good 40% of what appears in Journals is later found out to be erroneous or misinterpreted. As I’m sure you know.

I’m not sure ability to feel pain is a great criterion in any case. There is no simple easy answer, but pragmatically I think we have it about right at the moment.

I’m sure someone else will do a repeat study, however from what I gather with each new study the time gets pushed back.

Need to find a good meta-analysis.

So, no then.

I genuinely hope you never have to.

I genuinely hope no one puts you in charge of designing new drug treatments or understanding complex diseases.

In the mean time check this out

Conclusively, the appeal to emotion fallacy presents a perspective intended to be superior to reason. Appeals to emotion are intended to draw visceral feelings from the acquirer of the information. And in turn, the acquirer of the information is intended to be convinced that the statements that were presented in the fallacious argument are true; solely on the basis that the statements may induce emotional stimulation such as fear, pity and joy. Though these emotions may be provoked by an appeal to emotion fallacy, substantial proof of the argument is not offered, and the argument’s premises remain invalid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_emotion

Did you read that in a book or have you actually spent any time on a neonatal unit?

I don’t take my scientific advice from nurses in a neonatal unit. In fact I don’t listen to nurses full stop and doctors only sometimes. Clinicians seem to forget it’s scientists who develop the understanding and treatment of diseases – not the hunches of clinicians based on flawed experience.

Evidence based medicine, heard of it yeah?

The study I quoted was from one of the most prestigious peer reviewed journals.

the journal was ranked first overall in the category of highest-impact journals (all fields) over 1995–2005 with an average of 161.2 citations per paper

but I don’t think everyones interest and receptiveness for learning happens at the same age and not everyone thrives in a school environment either. College/Uni is a very different way of learning and people can excel there regardless of how well the did a school

THIS ^^ I’ve always said this! I’m really pleased others are taking note as well! I’d actually like to delve into this topic more. Some great and interesting posts guys, thanks.

I have the Special 6 and the Mountain Jacket.

Best jacket’s I’ve got and I’ve tried the ‘hundreds of quid’ hardshell route.

Wet and warm is where it’s at – they don’t get as sweaty as any of the hardshell’s I’ve used and unlike hard-shells they act like wetsuits if they get soaked through. You have to wear them against your skin though.

You do feel toasty in them sometimes but funnily enough I’ve never felt as sweaty in them.

Its not just for those conditions – its any ‘serious disability’ and can be carried out at any point up to full term. hence the fuss a few years ago when it came out that a late abortion was carried out for a cleft palette, and there are ones every year for downs syndrome and similar, they have even taken place for club foot.

at what point do you draw a line between serious medical conditions and eugenics?

The whole purpose of life is to pass on healthy genes and create healthy offspring – organisms will quite often not feed offspring that are not capable of becoming successful functioning adults. Everyone has the right to procreate and to do what they can to ensure the best possible outcome. If a couple can only afford one child who are you to tell them they should’t terminate a down-syndrome baby?

Eugenics isn’t de facto evil, it was just given a bad reputation by government mandated eugenics. I see nothing morally wrong with eugenics when it’s the families involved deciding the outcome.

Being a father to a 27 weeker, frankly those researchers are wrong.

Babies can’t tell the difference between touch and pain until around the 35th week. They did a lot of neuroscience trickery to understand this, you prodded your baby and decided it’s response appeared to be pain. You are yet another one of the vast majority that ignores scientific evidence in favour of superstition or emotional thinking.

When and how infants begin to discriminate noxious from innocuous stimuli is a fundamental question in neuroscience [1]. However, little is known about the development of the necessary cortical somatosensory functional prerequisites in the intact human brain. Recent studies of developing brain networks have emphasized the importance of transient spontaneous and evoked neuronal bursting activity in the formation of functional circuits [2,3]. These neuronal bursts are present during development and precede the onset of sensory functions [4,5]. Their disappearance and the emergence of more adult-like activity are therefore thought to signal the maturation of functional brain circuitry [2,4]. Here we show the changing patterns of neuronal activity that underlie the onset of nociception and touch discrimination in the preterm infant. We have conducted noninvasive electroencephalogram (EEG) recording of the brain neuronal activity in response to time-locked touches and clinically essential noxious lances of the heel in infants aged 28–45 weeks gestation. We show a transition in brain response following tactile and noxious stimulation from nonspecific, evenly dispersed neuronal bursts to modality-specific, localized, evoked potentials. The results suggest that specific neural circuits necessary for discrimination between touch and nociception emerge from 35–37 weeks gestation in the human brain.

http://www.cell.com/current-biology/retrieve/pii/S0960982211008852

None of the pro-lifers here have managed to make any rational philosophical or biological response to any of my points only “killing babies is bad, end of”.

No limit if there are severe abnormalities. Lowering the limit would not affect terminations for conditions incompatible with life.

Why just conditions incompatible with life? Plenty of babies could go on to live on life support or even be able to breathe and barely feed themselves but in many cases it may be a better option to terminate those pregnancies.

Precisely Chewkw.

I’ve always felt that education needs to teach people how to find their potential, how they learn and how to maximize their own potential etc etc etc instead of just telling them they are crap, average or brilliant.

This is partly because I’ve always had a total and utter disregard for any authority since I was quite young. I’ve never been able to handle anyone telling me anything unless they’ve earned my respect or admiration, I guess I just tried to impart some of that stubbornness on him.

I’m really happy for him Chewkw, really I am. A good education shouldn’t be just for those who’s flawed schools deemed them to have a high IQ.

I haven’t had chance to see him but I’ve downed a few beers despite having to be in work early. Very very happy, it makes me more optimistic about the world. As long as you have some curiosity, drive and intellectual discipline (you can teach this, you don’t need a high IQ for it) you can understand the world around you better. I tried to instill this in him and I think it worked.

To many people are told what they can and can’t do in life, I’ve always really hated it with a passion. I’ll die happy knowing I did a bit of good on this mad planet, tis a weird feeling changing someones life entirely.

Personally I have always felt that a sensible approach to deciding your version of ‘life’ is brain activity, can the fetus feel pain or not. Ethically I feel that any pain caused by termination of pregnancies or the execution of prisoners cannot be justified ethically for a variety of reasons, except under certain circumstances. This to some researchers puts the abortion limit at 35 weeks.

Can you clarify what you mean by this? I didn’t mention anything about something being “alive”. Merely whether we view it as a life or not.

A single cell is life, such as human sperm or eggs. Life just becomes increasingly complex in humans until the age of full adult maturity. If pro-lifers aren’t involved the abortion debate revolves around how complex that life can be when it is terminated.

A Honda, of some sorts. I can’t emphasize that enough.

That comment can equally apply to a new born child. Lack of memory or self awareness is not a recognised basis for ending a human life. You can talk about **** and shagging as much as you like bwaarp, but it won’t change that fact.

You still don’t get it, I’m in total agreement with Richard Dawkins on the point of infanticide from an existential ethical standpoint.

However I’m not sure infanticide has any public health benefits, so from a medical standpoint I think it is perhaps unethical from a utilitarian perspective.

Still think you’ve cornered me, be warned, intellectually I’m like a greased pig.

And therefore if you apply your logic it has to be applied beyond the moment of childbirth. I would have thought that point was obvious.

Your “**** into a sock” has no absolutely relevance to the point, and I presume you have thrown it in an attempt to steer away from what see as dodgy ground.

I think you can guess my opinion on the first point. It’s something along the lines of so what?

I think it has relevance, why is a human fetus any different at 24 weeks than a human sperm cell. It has a heartbeat but not much else. Do you think that killing it is wrong because it might go onto become a person if it doesn’t undergo natural termination? A sperm might go on to become a person if I stick it in the right person. The only difference is statistical probability but I don’t see how that has anything to do with the field of ethics.

There is no noticeable difference in memory or self awareness between immediately before birth, and immediately after birth, so presumable the “non-people” stage lasts for quite some time.

Yup…..and?

I guess I’m committing genocide if I **** into a sock, after all every sperm is a potential person.

OK to kill people when they lose consciousness then ? How about people in a deep sleep ? ….. they don’t know what’s happening.

Yes, if they’re never going to regain consciousness. Fetuses are not yet functioning individuals with memory or self awareness – in effect they are non-people.

How about killing old people as an aging population appears to be the problem in the British Isles ?

Or if that sounds a bit extreme how about not treating anyone who develops cancer ? We would save money too.

I actually believe in a government mandated age based cut off point before you have to pay for treatment yourself. What I’m not sure is what that age should be.

Besides abortion doesn’t hold the moral equivalence of condemning someone to death that has self awareness.

Given a significant number of abortion services have been shown as unable or unwilling to follow existing abortion laws , that despite the leaps forward in contraception and safe sex, the number of abortions has increased tenfold since abortion was legalised, and that half the premature babies born at the current cut off point of 24 weeks survive, then perhaps looking again at the legal position is a good idea.

Considering the British Isle’s and perhaps the planet is already overpopulated are you suggesting we should take a route that would lead to an increase in the birth rate?

International reputation? Are you guys forgetting the EU seemed to want hum extradited as well? The rest of the world doesn’t matter as barely any of them have democracies or non-heavily corrupt democracies.

Who’s going to think we suck US cock, Russia, China, Pakistan, Iran, Ecquador, Cuba….oh **** noes!…..like they have good human rights track records….

Home made plum chutney

It’s like crack

I’m going to move to clips, apparently it’s all about riding over the front more these days (which I have been doing for a while) but clips help in this regard.

Apparently women have had more sexual partners in the UK than men now. So this means their shagging foreigners, I wonder if the Daily Mail have used that one yet? Or depending if that number was mode as opposed to mean….sharing the same men.

Get a giant ego inflated way beyond your own ability like myself and quit caring what others think of you?

Because ending a ride caked in blood, sweat and mud looks way harder than poncing around in shin pads?

Does this mean I should grate crispy bacon?

Nahh needs some white otherwise I’ll look like the bumble-bee man off the simpsons!

Rinsing implies cleaning them? Would you not be dirtying them up, so in Binners case….soiling them?

I want a 160mm bike with a 64 degree head angle – stock – without a reducer – wonder if anyone makes one

Something else to laugh at in 15 years time alongside super-wide bars.

Except all the fastest guys in the DH scene are using a very forward riding position on steep stuff. What do you need for that? Wide bars, a super slack head angle, a long cockpit and spd’s.

Wide bars and slack bikes are no fad. They genuinely work better for downhilling.

Binners?

Or TandemJeremy?

As long as you understand them, what they do and why

That’s what Timothy Treadwell said about bears and what that fat Aussie Steve Erwin said about stingrays and every other animal he irritated.

Just not paying attention as far as I can tell – his sudden moves to the left or right are bizarre; don’t think he realises, one time he pushed someone off the road onto the grass and not sure he realised what he’d done as there wasn’t a crash.

Absence seizures?

My initial reaction is that the actors/writers were racist Indians having laugh at Pakistani’s.

She looks like a tranny.

Also there’s no real foolproof way you could tell she was a virgin. Not that it matters as slags are more fun.

Mattbee, the more you stand up and move around the quicker and better your recovery will be.

My guess then is he did that because he was taking massive doses of carbs (6000 cal/day)

You could have been genetically predisposed to a higher risk for developing type 2. It sometimes seems to just come with age even if you have been fit and healthy all your life, however by that I mean people in their 60-70’s. There are very rare single gene causes such a MODY that could have caused you to develop it.

It’s conjecture right now thought isn’t it, your list of symptoms might be a coincidence.

If Sir Steve Redgrave can end up type 2 diabetic, so can any fit bloke below the age of 40, doesnt necessarily have to be overweight lazy cake eating hogs and it grips my shit when thats how its banded about.

There are normally other rarer reasons as to why people like that develop Type 2. Generally in most people, they get Type 2 because they eat to much and lead a sedentary lifestyle. The rest are exceptions to the rule.

P.S Steve has Type 1, you are born with this. http://www.diabetes.co.uk/celebrities/steve-redgrave.html

It apparently increases the modulation a bit, which is always good with the old M810’s.

Wouldn’t be much more to just sell the brakes and buy a new set of Zee’s though. In fact seeing as you are considering XTR levers why not just go the whole hog and get the new 2013 Saint brake?