Rights of the undead

I spent a portion of my weekend watching this thread on abortion unfold over at Nashville is Talking, where it started out being about Stacey Campfield's kooky death-certificates-for-aborted-fetuses legislation that has gotten him craploads of press lately and ended up being yet another battle between the Lord's Army and us wretched Babykillers. (Twisty takes on the Campfield hooplah here.)

If you read the thread (and I'm daring you to; it's 207 comments of pure flamewar goodness, with solid arguments thrown in every now and again to keep it going), you'll notice a pro-life position emerge that basically alleges that anything containing human DNA can itself be considered human and is therefore sacred. (Specifically kicked off by a comment by Nate that reads: "A reasonable person cannot conclude that an object containing human DNA is not human.") Now, while many of us recognize that this DNA criterion makes skin flakes and certain body juices into humans with rights, some people apparently see in black and white yet they can't make these obvious distinctions.

So I got to thinking about the criteria set forth to recognize something as alive and human and deserving of human rights, and the wider implications of those assumptions. If you can extend human rights to the unborn, why not the undead?

Case in point, these people:



Wikipedia says we can define life using several criteria that scientists still don't agree unequivocally on:

1. Homeostasis: Regulation of the internal environment to maintain a constant state; for example, sweating to reduce temperature.

2. Organization: Being composed of one or more cells, which are the basic units of life.

3. Metabolism: Consumption of energy by converting nonliving material into cellular components (anabolism) and decomposing organic matter (catabolism). Living things require energy to maintain internal organization (homeostasis) and to produce the other phenomena associated with life.

4. Growth: Maintenance of a higher rate of synthesis than catalysis. A growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply accumulating matter. The particular species begins to multiply and expand as the evolution continues to flourish.

5. Adaptation: The ability to change over a period of time in response to the environment. This ability is fundamental to the process of evolution and is determined by the organism's heredity as well as the composition of metabolized substances, and external factors present.

6. Response to stimuli: A response can take many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism when touched to complex reactions involving all the senses of higher animals. A response is often expressed by motion, for example, the leaves of a plant turning toward the sun or an animal chasing its prey.

7. Reproduction: The ability to produce new organisms. Reproduction can be the division of one cell to form two new cells. Usually the term is applied to the production of a new individual (either asexually, from a single parent organism, or sexually, from at least two differing parent organisms), although strictly speaking it also describes the production of new cells in the process of growth.

Because zombies are so rare these days and, as far as I know, have not been tested extensively, the applicability of some of these criteria is up in the air. We can say without question (maybe ... unless you raise some questions) that most zombies are composed of cells, just like their living counterparts, and that they metabolize in some form or fashion (why else have an insatiable hunger for brains?), that they adapt, that they respond to stimuli, and that they reproduce, though their method of reproduction doesn't technically involve creation of new cells, so that one might be iffy.

What we don't know is whether zombies have the capacity to grow; theoretically they are not living and not dead but undead, and what do undead cells do? Are they frozen in a perpetual limbo, unable to decompose or regenerate? Extensive testing will need to be done to answer these questions.

But what if we find out, years from now, that our current violent attitude toward our bloodthirsty, lurching brothers and sisters was completely misguided? Who will protect the rights of the undead?

The only reason I bring this up is because the local rumor mill has been talking about zombies a lot lately and, well, you just never know what kind of crazy shit can happen in this town and what types of philosophical questions might need to be answered on the spot.

[photo by Psychofish]