I'd prefer if there were a less preachy version of this article. Its certainly scientifically interesting, but the abortion angle is out of place on HN.
If you click on the Amazon link to the book, you'll see that it's a book about how much worse off the world would be if 'animal rights activists' succeed in convincing the world that an animal's life is equal to a human's life. I'm assuming this is either the site of that author, or the site owner is endorsing the book. In either case, it seems like more of the arguments in that book (based on the reviews/summaries on Amazon) are appealing to emotions in a way that is reminiscent of the religious arguments against evolution ("Those darn scientists are trying to say that I'm nothing but a monkey! I was made in God's image damn it! Not some monkey's!"). Even the title of the book, "A Rat Is a Pig Is a Dog Is a Boy," is meant to evoke an emotional reaction.
After stumbling across this nugget of insight into the author, I'm not at all surprised that the article is so preachy and attributes the boy's success to the "strength of the human spirit" rather than our own shoddy understanding of how the brain works. The title would be better reformatted as, "boy proves that brain work in ways that we did not previously know," but that's not a title that will fetch you as much ad revenue as it winds it's way through Facebook.
I'm seeing anti-euthanasia in the article for sure, and certainly some anti-abortion arguments spring to my mind when reading, but I don't see the article actually making any of them. It's discussing only post-birth ethics.
I'm glad someone else noticed it! I read, "The V-word should never be applied to any human, but that point aside, think very carefully about this story" and basically tuned out from there. The person even misses the point of political correctness (not offending people), because people in a vegetative state cannot be offended. They are dead, animated husks. It's one of the most horrible examples of technology getting ahead of culture and ethics that I can think of.
After stumbling across this nugget of insight into the author, I'm not at all surprised that the article is so preachy and attributes the boy's success to the "strength of the human spirit" rather than our own shoddy understanding of how the brain works. The title would be better reformatted as, "boy proves that brain work in ways that we did not previously know," but that's not a title that will fetch you as much ad revenue as it winds it's way through Facebook.