Can you force your mother or father to attach themselves to you for 9

[Guaranteed]

Poll question: Can you force your mother or father to attach themselves to you for 9

months if you were sick and it was the only way to keep you alive? How about your father?

Let's say that you're in a car accident with your mother or father. When you wake up, in the hospital, the doctors have attached you to your parent through a complicated series of tubes. The doctors tell you that the procedure was absolutely necessary to keep you alive, and that for the next nine months you will have to stay attached to that parent, or else you will die. After that period of time, your body will be healed enough to take care of itself.

Let's say you actually wanted to continue this arrangement. Many parents probably would do this for their children, but let's just say that your particular parent was really turned off by the inconvenience of it. While your mother or father may have an ethical interest, as parents, in keeping you alive, should the government be able to force them to stay attached to you for this amount of time if they didn't want to do it?

Here are your choices, which are too long to put in the choice boxes given:

#1. Yes, the government can force a parent to stay attached to their child to keep it alive for 9 months.

#2. No, the government can not force a parent to stay attached to their child for nine months, even though they may have an ethical or moral obligation to do so, as a parent, because it would violate that parent's rights.

#3. No, the government can not force a parent to stay attached to their child for nine months, and they don't even have an ethical or moral obligation to do so.

If you have a different answer, please give it below.

[Finding Rawls]

1. Thomson's argument is a joke nt

[Guaranteed]

2. No, it's not. I thought it was, too, at first.

But it's exactly the same thing. That fetus/baby is living off of its mother through its attachment to her. How can the government force the mother to continue that situation, whether the fetus is a person or not?

Notice that in this argument, the person being kept alive is most definitely a person, and is also the offspring of the person he/she is attached to.

[MAlibdem]

29. It's a fetus, not a person

And therein lies the essential difference that this silly little game does not account for and intentionally overlooks.

A fetus is not a member of humankind until birth. Before that it is potential for human existence.

If G-d truly hated abortion, and if life (esp as relevant to religion) truly began in the womb, 15-20% of all pregnacies wouldn't end naturally ththrough miscarraige (either the fertilized egg's failure to latch on to uterine lining or later).

http://health.discovery.com/centers/pregnancy/americanbaby/miscarriage.html

[Guaranteed]

33. This thought experiment is granting personhood to the fetus

deliberately to address the worst case scenario, and thus show that personhood doesn't even affect the parent's rights.

[Dogmudgeon]

3. I smell a trick question

Considering that some of us have had parents who died while in our care, you might want to try something less deceptive.

Leave the cuteness to the Freepers.

--p!

[Guaranteed]

4. WTF are you talking about?

It's an honest thought experiment straight from a college bio-medical ethics class.

This is THE definitive pro-choice argument, and it makes our case. What's your answer?

[MAlibdem]

30. I dunno how it's a pro-choice argument

I think the parent should be forced to stay attached because now the other person is a human being fully physcially and spiritual actualized, as opposed to a fetus, which is certainly not.

[Guaranteed]

32. You can't force them to stay attached. That violates their

rights.

Can you just attach yourself to anyone and then say, "Hey, you're just gonna have to deal with this to keep me alive?"

[Finding Rawls]

5. If you could. . .

fly (and I mean Superman fly, just up and fly around) should you have to gain a pilot's license?

[Guaranteed]

6. I'm not seeing the connection. nt

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Guaranteed]

9. No, it doesn't only apply to rape cases.

Let's say that the mother initially agreed to attach herself to her dying son, but then changed her mind and wanted to detach the tubes.

Are you saying that she can't change her mind? And, remember- we're dealing with her son, in this thought experiment, who she brought into this world.

The really funny thing about this response is that even if the woman PLANNED on getting pregnant, she STILL has the right to remove that fetus/baby from her body. It doesn't just cover accidents.

[Finding Rawls]

10. She chooses to connect herself?

Uh. . .bad idea I guess. She chose. You're pro-choice right?

[Guaranteed]

11. Yeah, I'm now asking what if she initially chose to connect herself,

in response to your comment about the thought experiment only applying to rape.

You're saying she couldn't change her mind at any time, and disconnect her son from herself?

This is almost a perfect analogy. Can you find a significant difference?

[Finding Rawls]

12. She chose

Live with the consequences

[Guaranteed]

13. Nah...you know she has the right to disconnect.

She has every right. The government can not force her to stay connected.

[Finding Rawls]

14. So if I agree to give you $10 dollars for your pen

and you give me your pen, I can then take my ten dollars back?

[Guaranteed]

15. It's not a contract. There's no consideration.

Even if it was, I don't think you could hold her to it. You're talking about a person's bodily rights, here.

[Finding Rawls]

16. Did she ask her son if she could connect herself to him?

[Guaranteed]

17. No, let's just say that the idea came up from the doctor,

and both mother and son agreed to it.

You realize I'm being very generous in this thought experiment with you already, right?

I'm giving you that the fetus is a person, which of course is a HUGE concession, and I'm also giving you that the mother even decided specifically to connect herself to her son (analogous to deliberately getting pregnant). I'm even giving you that she may have a moral/ethical obligation to her son to stay connected to him for 9 months.

However, what I'm not giving you is that the government can force her to stay connected to her son. That would violate her rights.

[Finding Rawls]

18. You're being generous with me?

"I'm even giving you that she may have a moral/ethical obligation to her son to stay connected to him for 9 months.

However, what I'm not giving you is that the government can force her to stay connected to her son. That would violate her rights."


Christ, a woman "has the right" to have an abortion at nine months, obviously a woman has the right to disconnect herself in your incredibly ridiculous hypothetical. If you're giving me that she has a moral/ethical obligation to her son then we're finished.

[Guaranteed]

19. Even IF I do give you that, even if abortion is morally "wrong,"

to whatever degree, her right to disconnect that fetus/baby stands. The government can't force her to stay physically connected to that fetus/baby- even at 8 1/2 months. Her rights cover her whole term.

Keep in mind, though, that in asserting that moral obligation, you're telling everyone that a parent has the same moral obligation to their child no matter WHAT age that child is. They have to connect themselves to their child, if it is the only thing that would keep them alive, possibly even *for the rest of their lives*- and only morally. Not legally.

To expound on this point, where's the cutoff point as far as the length of time one is obligated to be connected to a child, morally? 9 months? Three years? Twenty years? For life?

[Finding Rawls]

20. you're all over the place

"Keep in mind, though, that in asserting that moral obligation, you're telling everyone that a parent has the same moral obligation to their child no matter WHAT age that child is. They have to connect themselves to their child, if it is the only thing that would keep them alive, possibly even *for the rest of their lives*- and only morally. Not legally."

I thought she chose to connect?

[Guaranteed]

21. We abandoned legality and switched to morals in your last post.

I'm now talking about moral obligations, while maintaining the conflict between a parent's moral obligation and their rights as a person, a conflict which, in court, should be won by their rights as a person.

Again, I'll ask what the cut-off point is, *morally*, for a parent to be connected to their child, as far as length of time.

What would be the length of time for connection that a parent could morally decline to undergo?

[Finding Rawls]

22. Did the parent choose to be connected?

[Guaranteed]

23. You're saying they don't even have a choice, morally, right?

That point is moot if you're saying that they have a moral obligation to connect themselves.

How long?

Or are you even saying that? Cuz that's what I was conceding.

[Finding Rawls]

24. I never said or hinted

that a parent has an obligation to connect themselves to the child.

[Guaranteed]

25. Alright, then, what about the case mentioned in my OP,

where she woke up connected, and then the other case, in which she consented to being connected?

[Guaranteed]

26. Alternatively, are you then saying that a mother/father has a moral

obligation to stay connected once they are connected?

[Guaranteed]

27. In any case, I don't see how the parent's agreement would play

significantly into the morality of their actions. Either the parent has a duty to their child to keep them alive, or not- and that's what I've been trying to get at with you, here. This "contract" theory of morality isn't very convincing.

[TaleWgnDg]

8. .

---

[Poppyseedman]

28. This is the argument for a pro - choice position

and taught in college college bio-medical ethics class ??? Someone paid good money to be taught this?

The entire premise is flawed because mutual consent between two parties is part of the situation, as opposed to a real life pregnancy.

Building fancy dancy situational ethics questions are still not going to answer the moral or ethical questions surrounding the abortion question

Roe v Wade is a seriously flawed SCOTUS opinion that has left us with long term mucky and legally nebulous constitutional direction, regardless of which side of the debate you fall into.

[Guaranteed]

31. The consent question is addressed above,

beginning in post #9.

It doesn't change anything.

In this situation, we're talking about a son/daughter and a father or a mother. Just as in a possible abortion case, the father/mother has *made the choice* to bring this person into the world. Why would their responsibilities as parents change simply because their child has gotten older?

What if the son/daughter was only a few weeks old in this situation? Would the mother or father then be required to connect themselves? What does their child's age have to do with their responsibilities?