TV's Frink said:

Warbler said:

? what RicOlie_2 said made sense to me.

Killing a person to pay rent is more justified than killing a clump of cells? Oh yeah, makes perfect sense.

You missed several details.

A) I never once wrote about a clump of cells. I'm being general here, but let's just say I'm referring to a viable fetus.

B) The man in question is quadriplegic, unaware of his surroundings, and thus no more conscious than a baby.

C) However, he has lived his life out, and the baby/fetus hasn't even had a chance.

So I ask, why is it justifiable to deprive that fetus/baby of its chance, yet it is shocking to hear about a man who is practically in a vegetative state being killed so that another man can pay his rent?

To improve my scenario, since there wouldn't really be a reason to kill a quadriplegic to get money, let's say that this man who can't pay his rent is the son of the immobilized man, who is this time recovering from a serious stroke, and has not regained use of his mental or physical faculties, but may do so in the future. He has to pay for his father's care for some reason or other, but simply cannot afford to pay for the rent as well. So, one day, he decides to kill his father. He is imprisoned for murder, and many people are shocked.

Now for another scenario: let's say that there is a single woman who has become pregnant. She realizes that once here pregnancy advances far enough, she will have to quit her job and will no longer be able to pay the rent, etc. Because she will simply not be able to afford caring for a baby and pay the rent on top of it, she decides to abort her baby/clump of cells. Let's say that this baby/clump of cells is 20 weeks old (i.e. distinctly human, but not yet viable). She suffers no consequences, aside from possible emotional or psychological effects, which may or may not have occurred. She has the approval of many people in society, including some of her relatives, who knew of her situation. Others decry it, but since the action was entirely legal, she suffers no legal repercussions.

Now let's compare these two. Both of them have the destruction of a life that is barely aware of its existence. Both of them save someone in financial distress. Both of them involve destroying a person's potential. In one case, the life has already been mostly lived, and the remainder of its life will be spent in old age, with the man having limited mobility and mental abilities. In the other case, the baby/fetus has its whole life ahead of it. It may be born into an unwanted home, but it could be adopted, or it could recover and live an enjoyable life later on. In the first case, society was horrified. In the second, society approved. Why is it so wrong in the first case, but not wrong in the second?

For those of you who think it would be an act of mercy to kill a baby to prevent it from being abused and unhappy, I have a fifteen year-old friend who, for the first eleven or twelve years of his life was in such a scenario. He hardly wants to be dead, and I doubt he would have appreciated being aborted. He was born to a couple of drug dealers in the Ukraine who did not want a child (his mother was eighteen). His parents were abusive, and he was removed from his family three separate times. His parents regained custody of him twice, and he spent time in foster homes during that time. The third time, he was removed from them permanently (though he is still in touch with his biological uncle and some other relatives) and was placed in a series of homes with foster parents. He was abused in a couple of them, and over time developed some psychological disorders which got him into trouble a few times. Finally, he was adopted by his current parents, when he was eleven or twelve years old. His sisters were adopted by a different family, and he visits them often. He is generally pretty happy, has friends, and works past his sociopathy (which his uncle--a psychopathic sniper) helps him with. He has a job, is very intelligent, a talented pianist, and overall lives a pretty good life now, aside from his past experiences.

Who are we to say that it is better to abort a fetus than have that fetus become an abused child if we don't know the final outcome? There are so many variables we don't know, so we cannot determine whether the child will be happy or miserable. Some might then say that it is better to prevent that, but think of this: you have a serious stroke when only in your forties or fifties. You have a chance to recover, and live happily for another thirty or forty years, but you also might be stuck like this for the rest of your life. Even if you are stuck like that, though, you will almost certainly gain the ability to speak, eat, see, and maybe even move your limbs a bit. You will also retain most of your mental abilities, though it might take a bit for them to be restored to their full ability. Would you want someone to kill you for any of the following reasons (I'm assuming, since you have limited mental abilities in this scenario and I am comparing you being taken off life support to an abortion, in which case the fetus has no choice in the matter):

You're too expensive for a temporary vegetable.
Your family doesn't love you anyway. Good riddance if you're gone.
You might not recover, and probably wouldn't live happily anyway, since you'll never play sports again, most probably, and likely won't even walk.
You won't even know what happened if you're taken off life support. It's better to finish you before you're aware of your condition.
You've lived your life already. There's no point in allowing it to continue in suffering (even if you're perfectly happy watching TV, and if you recover more fully--let's use Frink as an example now, since he's close to his fifties--posting on internet forums, making fanedits, and never working another day in your life).

Maybe you would rather they kill you. But maybe you would rather they waited until you could decide?

That isn't to say I condone euthanasia, however. Even if you wanted death, euthanasia ends up extending past people with such desires. Just look up what's happening in the Scandinavian countries, for instance. Child euthanasia is being pushed for, and it isn't uncommon for an elderly relative to be killed without the family's knowledge. Sometimes they are mentally unprepared to give the answer, and are killed anyway, without their family getting a chance to say goodbye. Sometimes they don't even consent, but their situation is deemed hopeless and they are left to die. It leads to the devaluation of the elderly and mentally ill or handicapped, so I cannot accept it.

In case you don't see where I'm going with that last paragraph: is it better, let's assume that there the victim in the following scenario is given no choice in the matter, to allow an elderly woman "euthanized" without her consent, or to have an unborn child (yes, child--I assume you don't speak about the clump of cells within someone when the child is wanted, you call it a baby) killed when their whole life is yet to be lived? ['Twas a bit of a clumsy sentence, I know, but there is some stupid text over-write on that I can't turn off, so I ain't making it easier to read.] Why is abortion so acceptable, yet it is horrible when a disabled elderly person is killed? Sure, the elderly person has friends and family who love him/her, but he/she has lived there life already and would have only had another few years to live.

I know I repeated myself many times, but I wanted to make my point very clear, and wanted you to think about it in a couple different ways.

In case you didn't bother reading my lengthy post, you'll have to if you want to know what I was getting at.