Quote (Gastly @ 21 Aug 2016 23:02)
Would it not be better to err on the side of caution here?
You can't really provide proof of anyone's/anything's sentience. Seeing that your claim of their lack of sentience is based on an assumption as well I'm willing to assume otherwise. Regardless, a temporary lack of sentience should in no way deprive anyone of their rights.
I do not see what the ability to feel pain has to do with one's right to live.
There isn't an anyone to deprive a right of(f?).
I postulate that you need to have a functioning brain to be able to be sentient. By which I don't mean that actual human beings with braindamage and/or -deficiencies are not sentient or do not have rights.
I mean that if your brain is the size of a peanut and incapable of sending information through the organism (= an embryo's or early fetus' breain) it is not sentient.
Unwilling mothers should be able to abort their non-sentient embryo, just as I think that next of kin/life-partners should be able to pull the plug in case of their loved one being irrevocably braindead.