Reply #11: Actually, some don't.

[Banazir]

Some have a cerebral cortex and some don't, sometimes the fluid fills that much of the brain that they don't have much of one at all. I know people with mild hydrocephalus where it hasn't done that, but there are people with the severe kind who indeed have little to no cortex left: "Up to a certain point, the white matter changes are reversible, and often spectacular recovery is seen after shunting. If pressure is not relieved, permanent atrophy, first of the white matter and then of the cortex, develops. This causes spastic paralysis, loss of bladder function, and dementia. In severe hydrocephalus, the cortex and white matter may become paper thin and semitransparent such that the head transilluminates."

But at any rate, some of us actually consider someone with only a brainstem to be a living human being still, and yeah, a disabled one at that. Just as someone with that severe kind of hydrocephalus, or hydranencephaly, or anenchephaly, is a disabled human being. Some of us don't just stick with the 'pretty' disabilities when we engage in disability rights work, hard as that may be for some others to believe. I wish it were more of us. You don't need, at any rate, to scream at me that she has no cortex. I know she has little to no cortex. What I'm saying is that doesn't make her any less of a person in my eyes.