I'll reword my question so as to get the right emphasis. I am not asking in which of the two scenarios the mother's action is ethically wrong/right. But in which of the scenarios does the baby have the right to question the mother.
I am saying: In scenario A the baby can question thew mother
In scenario B the baby cannot question the mother
Guess why and we'll pick it up from there.
மூவா? முதல்வா! இனியெம்மைச் சோரேலே
PR, my guest in Scenario A, the reason the baby canOriginally Posted by Prabhu Ram
queston the mother.........From mothers point of view, she
does not want to go against nature and if it is in her destiny
that a deformed baby be born, she is ready to accept it
and hence does not want to take the medicine.
From the babys point of view, this is equivalent to any other
disease one can naturally get, such as fever, bp etc, if the
mother is a person who does take remedy for such thing (which she should be considering that she saw a doctor, if she was
a beleiver of relegion science, she would not have seen a doctor)
so it is just that she should have taken the medicine to avoid
the deformation.
It may sound dumb, but this is what I can come up with as of
now.
Re the second scenario, cannog guess why the baby does not
have the right to question.
Can you please answer for both scenarios the reason why
the baby has the right to question in first scenario and not in
the second?
Case A: The baby can ask. You guess right. When the mother can afford the medication and wilfully does not have it then it is a conscious act of hurting the child. So the child can sayb 'why did u do this'PR, my guest in Scenario A, the reason the baby can
queston the mother.........From mothers point of view, she
does not want to go against nature and if it is in her destiny
that a deformed baby be born, she is ready to accept it
and hence does not want to take the medicine.
From the babys point of view, this is equivalent to any other
disease one can naturally get, such as fever, bp etc, if the
mother is a person who does take remedy for such thing (which she should be considering that she saw a doctor, if she was
a beleiver of relegion science, she would not have seen a doctor)
so it is just that she should have taken the medicine to avoid
the deformation.
It may sound dumb, but this is what I can come up with as of
now.
Re the second scenario, cannog guess why the baby does not
have the right to question.
Can you please answer for both scenarios the reason why
the baby has the right to question in first scenario and not in
the second?
Case B: Here the baby can't ask. Here's why:
Baby: Why did you do this to me ? Why didn't you wait for three months ?
Mommy: Sure I could have waited honey and the baby that I would have had would have come from a different sperm and egg and would not have been you. i.e you would not even exist. Isn't somehting better than nothing ?
Seems like a silly answer. Yeah, but look at its implications for the definition of life. Or mopre precisely the origin of life.We expect any rational mother to postpone conception, so can't the same logic be extended to abortion,euthanasia ?
மூவா? முதல்வா! இனியெம்மைச் சோரேலே
PR,Case A: The baby can ask. You guess right. When the mother can afford the medication and wilfully does not have it then it is a conscious act of hurting the child. So the child can sayb 'why did u do this'PR, my guest in Scenario A, the reason the baby can
queston the mother.........From mothers point of view, she
does not want to go against nature and if it is in her destiny
that a deformed baby be born, she is ready to accept it
and hence does not want to take the medicine.
From the babys point of view, this is equivalent to any other
disease one can naturally get, such as fever, bp etc, if the
mother is a person who does take remedy for such thing (which she should be considering that she saw a doctor, if she was
a beleiver of relegion science, she would not have seen a doctor)
so it is just that she should have taken the medicine to avoid
the deformation.
It may sound dumb, but this is what I can come up with as of
now.
Re the second scenario, cannog guess why the baby does not
have the right to question.
Can you please answer for both scenarios the reason why
the baby has the right to question in first scenario and not in
the second?
Case B: Here the baby can't ask. Here's why:
Baby: Why did you do this to me ? Why didn't you wait for three months ?
Mommy: Sure I could have waited honey and the baby that I would have had would have come from a different sperm and egg and would not have been you. i.e you would not even exist. Isn't somehting better than nothing ?
Seems like a silly answer. Yeah, but look at its implications for the definition of life. Or mopre precisely the origin of life.We expect any rational mother to postpone conception, so can't the same logic be extended to abortion,euthanasia ?
Thanks for the reply.
My English is not very good, I would appreciate if you can please
elaborate more on the scenario B and try to put it in more
simpler English with more explanations, sorry for the trouble.
ALso, I was wondering, it is not the babies that ask to be given
existense, it is the parents who want to give birth to babies
and bring them to this world, in this case, I feel, still the baby has
the right to ask as to why, knowing that he/she was going to
be deformed if conceived, was conceived. Also I fail to understand
the relationship between this scenario and abortion. Please
explain more. Thanks.
Scenario A
Pregnant mother goes to the doctor. After check-up doctor says :' given the current state the baby will be born with a deformity, however take this pill and the there'll be no problem'. The woman can well afford the pill but she refuses to take it. the kid is born with a defect.
Answer: The woman has already conceived. While conceiving or not is not in her hands, she certainly acted negligently inspite of doctor's warning. She is guilty (probably not in the eyes of the law considering how liberal the law is now).
Woman plans to have a baby. Before getting herself impregnated she goes to the doctor for a check-up. Doctor says your physical condition is such that, if you have sex now the baby conceived out of the union will be borne with a deformity. OTOH if you wait for three months, your ophysical condition will improve and if you get yourself impregnated then the baby formed then will be born healthy.
The woman ignores the advice and gets impregnated immediately. The baby has a birth defect. The qn. was : 'can the baby accuse the mother as in Scenario A ?
The answer is No. Because this baby is born out of a combination of sperm and egg of a particular date. Had the mother used contraceptives/abstinenceas adviced by the doctor (for three months) this baby would never have been born at all. It would not exist. So the baby cannot ask the question if we accept the argument that some existence is better than non-existence.
I suppose this stands answered by the previous paragraph. Doesn't it ?
In scenario B we will universally agree that the woman should postpone conception by 3 months, right ? Basically we are denying birth to a potential baby. So we justify parent's right to choose so far as contraception. So far so good. A 'poetential' life was denied because the we think the quality of life of the child would be undesirable. So if the foetus is sure to have a horrible quality of life then is it rational for the mother to abort ? (just as it was rational for the mother in scenario B to postpone conception.
மூவா? முதல்வா! இனியெம்மைச் சோரேலே
Thanks for the clarification PR, it is clear now.Woman plans to have a baby. Before getting herself impregnated she goes to the doctor for a check-up. Doctor says your physical condition is such that, if you have sex now the baby conceived out of the union will be borne with a deformity. OTOH if you wait for three months, your ophysical condition will improve and if you get yourself impregnated then the baby formed then will be born healthy.
The woman ignores the advice and gets impregnated immediately. The baby has a birth defect. The qn. was : 'can the baby accuse the mother as in Scenario A ?
The answer is No. Because this baby is born out of a combination of sperm and egg of a particular date. Had the mother used contraceptives/abstinenceI suppose this stands answered by the previous paragraph. Doesn't it ?
In scenario B we will universally agree that the woman should postpone conception by 3 months, right ? Basically we are denying birth to a potential baby. So we justify parent's right to choose so far as contraception. So far so good. A 'poetential' life was denied because the we think the quality of life of the child would be undesirable. So if the foetus is sure to have a horrible quality of life then is it rational for the mother to abort ? (just as it was rational for the mother in scenario B to postpone conception.
As for, "A 'poetential' life was denied because the we think the quality of life of the child would be undesirable. So if the foetus is sure to have a horrible quality of life then is it rational for the mother to abort ?" I think it is 2 different scenarios and cannot
be compared, because when the baby is not conceived
there is no life, re denial of a potential life, this applies to
every time a couple uses a contraceptive while having sex,
i.e everytime a contraceptive is used, it means a potential life
is being denied, but, is that wrong?
In case of an abortion, the life is already formed, in this case
the abortion will mean killing which IMO is wrong.
Rgds
Yeaj I understand. I want to make it clear that I was just tabling an opinion not (necessarily) my opinion.
So, you consider life to have a 'originated' if the foetus has been conceived, so it is murder no matter what . Can I take it that way.
Let's take your definition to answer the following question:
A pregnant woman is told that she is too weak to have a baby.The pregnancy is at a stage where abortion is still an option. A definite life-saving option for the woman. OTOH if she goes ahead with the pregnancy there is a 50% chance that she would die during pregnancy.
In this case what would be the rational action for the mother? ( I am not pulling this out of my hat, recently there was a HC case filed by the husband to prevent his wife from aborting their foetus. She was planning to as she ran a high risk of death during delivery ). Should we prevent her from averting risk to her life because it means resorting to 'murder' ? Can we call it 'murder for self-defence' ? But the probability is not 100 % only 590 %. So is there a threshold probability that determines whether it is justifiable or not ?
மூவா? முதல்வா! இனியெம்மைச் சோரேலே
Hi PR,
First of all, I would like to clarify, what I wrote about abortion is
not neccessariy my opinion, it was just a general opinion that
once conceived, a foetus has life and eliminating the same is
considered taking the life, my opinion on aborition depends on
each particular case and situation. Lets leave that aside,
About the example you cited, IMO, the mother should not be
allowed to go ahead with the pregnancy, have personally been
thru a situation close to this one recently, my baby was born
recently, a premature one, born after 7 months of conceivement,
it was a high risk delivery, if I had to face the same situation,
if the doctor had told that there are 50% chances of mothers
survival, I would have opted for the mothers survival.
Rgds.
I think I inadvertently got a bit personal on that question. Asking hypothetical questions is a completely different comfort zone altogether. So I change topic thus:
Again a two scenario case:
Scenario A) You see a train charging towards a group of (say 5) children playing on the track. In an alternative track there is a fully grown man. You, the driver, have a button in control. If you press the button the train would change tracks and hit and kill the man. If you do nothing all the 5 children will die.
What would you do ?
Scenario B ) You are bystander and you see the traion rushing at the group of kids. There is no paralell track.There is this large man next to you and you can surprise him and push him on the tracks. If you do that the train hits and kills the man but stops and thus the kids are saved. If you don't do anything the kids will die.
What would you do ?
மூவா? முதல்வா! இனியெம்மைச் சோரேலே
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