Survival of the Fittest and Health Care

dyslexia wrote:

Stephen Hawking.

dys- Steven Hawking has a mind. The person to whom I am referring has none. She has less mental and physical ability than a normal newborn infant.

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Phoenix32890 wrote:

flaja wrote:
Killing off the sick and infirm or letting them die of thirst or starvation is any less right?

I am not suggesting killing someone off. What I am saying is that medical science has gotten to the point where people who normally, in the natural course of events, would not have lived, are now living due to heroic interventions.

Is there any difference between murder by commission and murder by omission? If medical technology can save a life, why do we not have the moral obligation to do so?

My mother was physically unable to carry a baby to term. Before I was born her doctor had told her to expect a stillbirth.

I was born 10 weeks premature in 1968; at birth I weighed less than 3.5 pounds- according to what I have been told I was the smallest surviving baby ever born in the state of Florida up to that time.

I spent the first 2 months of my life in an incubator.

Between being born premature and spending 2 months in an incubator the doctor suggested that I could have brain damage and could be blind and, and he thoroughly expected me to have respiratory problems for my entire life (I did end up with severe bronchitis every winter until I was about 14).

Considering all of the things that cold have been wrong with me, did the doctor engage in heroic interventions to keep me alive at birth? And just who gets to decide what constitutes heroic interventions and who gets to decide which life is worth keeping?

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Phoenix32890 wrote:

dyslexia wrote:
Stephen Hawking.

dys- Steven Hawking has a mind. The person to whom I am referring has none. She has less mental and physical ability than a normal newborn infant.

But suppose we didn't have the technical capacity to determine what kind of brain function Hawking had when he was born. What then? Einstein supposedly didn't learn to talk until he was 3 or 4 years old. I suppose by your standards Einstein was defective and should have been disposed of at age 2.

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Quote:

Is there any difference between murder by commission and murder by omission?

Depends on the context doesn't it. A mother providing no food for her baby until it starves to death, is committing murder. But a person who has a terminal illness / injury, and would die without scientific intervention...

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If medical technology can save a life, why do we not have the moral obligation to do so?

That's a loaded question : Much would depend on the definition of life, and much would depend on the will of the person involved. Then there's other contextual background (eg is the person in a coma, or like yourself, born prematurely, etc)

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Is there any difference between murder by commission and murder by omission?

Yes. The first is murder. The second is not.

Murder is when you take action to end someone's life. To stand by and watch while someone dies even though you have the means to save them isn't murder.

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If medical technology can save a life, why do we not have the moral obligation to do so?

I think the moral obligations of considering the consequences of saving a life is just as important as the actual saving. If you save the life of someone you know will kill others your moral obligation caused others to suffer for your righteousness. Which makes your morals a means of self preservation, a way to feel good about yourself.

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vikorr wrote:

Depends on the context doesn't it. A mother providing no food for her baby until it starves to death, is committing murder. But a person who has a terminal illness / injury, and would die without scientific intervention...

Sounds like you are advocating that we kill off the terminally ill just because they are terminally ill. If a person who has cancer is told he has 2 years to live, when do you kill them? How much of those 2 years would the person be allowed to live before you kill him? And what would give you or anyone else the right to make this decision? What right does anyone have to ask another person to play God?

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That's a loaded question : Much would depend on the definition of life, and much would depend on the will of the person involved.

The will of the person involved? What right does anyone have to obligate another to help with a suicide?

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Then there's other contextual background (eg is the person in a coma, or like yourself, born prematurely, etc)

What criteria would you use to decide when someone can live and when they should die?

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Cyracuz wrote:

Murder is when you take action to end someone's life. To stand by and watch while someone dies even though you have the means to save them isn't murder.

How is the latter not the moral equivalent of the former? Why do we not have a moral obligation to preserve life?

If my mother, the doctor or the law had refused to let me be placed in an incubator for the first 2 months of my life, why would it not have been murder? The means for saving my life were available, but you think not using them so that I would die wouldn't have been murder?

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If you save the life of someone you know will kill others your moral obligation caused others to suffer for your righteousness.

Do you support abortion? Do you support the death penalty?

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flaja.
It might be the moral equivalent, but that does not make it the same thing.
In the first case, life will continue unless you intervene.
In the second, life will continue only if you intervene.

A clear difference, though they might be moral equivalents. That is up to the individual situation.

And about abortion, I don't care. If someone wants it, let them. If they don't then don't do it. It's their own friggin choice.

And the death penalty... I do not support it as a punishment for acts already committed. But as a means to prevent a person murdering again, if there's a 100% chance of that happening, I think that to dispose of that person is more humane than keeping him locked up and isolated all his natural life.

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Quote:

Sounds like you are advocating that we kill off the terminally ill just because they are terminally ill. If a person who has cancer is told he has 2 years to live, when do you kill them? How much of those 2 years would the person be allowed to live before you kill him? And what would give you or anyone else the right to make this decision? What right does anyone have to ask another person to play God?

Is that what I said? I'm amazed at myself

You offered a scenario and asked if it would constitute murder, not whether or not we would kill someone off.

And Play God? That's an astounding claim, considering, if it were left purely up to Gods will, without medical treatment/surgery, there would a hell of a lot more dead people, and by giving medical treatment, you are obstructing God's will.

or are you telling me that God wants them alive (and that you somehow know that), and that you are playing God for him?

You do see how silly an argument that can become?

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The will of the person involved? What right does anyone have to obligate another to help with a suicide?

Remember we are talking about health care here, and what constitutes murder (as per your question)so those that would want to die, are terminally ill or fatally injured.

Health care does this all the time when the patient has a ?'do not resuscitate' wish, or the parents decide to pull the plug on a comatose accident patient.

It seems only terminally ill people, who actually are able to make and state a conscious decision, are deprived of similar privilege.

Now that I've provided a bit more context - are you still asking what ?'right' I have to assist such a person to end their life?

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vikorr wrote:

You offered a scenario and asked if it would constitute murder, not whether or not we would kill someone off.

Killing someone off isn't murder?

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Cyracuz wrote:

flaja.
It might be the moral equivalent, but that does not make it the same thing.

Huh?

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Killing someone off isn't murder?

Flaja, you keep asking questions deprived of context. And considering how you have previously also modified context of answers I've given - being specific would appear to be very helpful to yourself.

As for the lack of context of the above as example :
- do you call killing an enemy solider off, in war, murder?
- do you calling killing someone off in self defense, when that other would take your life, murder?

The only answer can be - it depends on the context.

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vikorr wrote:

Quote:
Killing someone off isn't murder?

Flaja, you keep asking questions deprived of context.

If your morality is context-specific, then you have no morality.

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If your morality is context-specific, then you have no morality

A number of points :

- 'morality' is often contextual. For example : from a christian perspective (which is the group that uses the word morality the most, and of which I am not) - A woman having sex with a man she's married to is moral, while a woman having sex with a man she's not married is 'immoral' - that's contextual. If you are christian, your statement is flat out wrong by christian beliefs, if you are not, then it is simply your opinion.

-In relation to subject matter : In the first instance we are talking about what is murder, and now we are talking about morals, which is a great deal broader ranging. Which would you like to talk about?

-In relation to answering questions : I've been answering most of the questions you have asked of me - your reciprocating the courtesy by attempting to answer most of the questions I have asked of you would be appreciated.

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vikorr wrote:

Quote:
If your morality is context-specific, then you have no morality

A number of points :

Moral relativism is wrong pure and simple. It is not a debatable issue.

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flaja wrote:

Cyracuz wrote:

flaja.
It might be the moral equivalent, but that does not make it the same thing.

Huh?

Try to keep up.
To murder someone is to act against them.
Inaction isn't murder.

You might be just as responsible for the death of the person you failed to help as the person you actually killed, all depending on the individual situation, but in the first instance it could not be called murder.

So...

It might be the moral equivalent, but that does not make it the same thing.

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Cyracuz wrote:

flaja wrote:

Cyracuz wrote:

flaja.
It might be the moral equivalent, but that does not make it the same thing.

Huh?

Try to keep up.
To murder someone is to act against them.
Inaction isn't murder.

You might be just as responsible for the death of the person you failed to help as the person you actually killed, all depending on the individual situation, but in the first instance it could not be called murder.

So...

It might be the moral equivalent, but that does not make it the same thing.

If you have the ability to preserve life and you willfully refuse to do so you have morally committed murder.

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No.
Murder is when one person kills the other through action.

You may be right in that you may have some responsibility that the person you failed to help is dead, but it doesn't qualify as murder.

It's a matter of definitions, what words mean. Simple.

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Cyracuz wrote:

No.
Murder is when one person kills the other through action.

You may be right in that you may have some responsibility that the person you failed to help is dead, but it doesn't qualify as murder.

It's a matter of definitions, what words mean. Simple.

You just don't get it. You have no respect for life.

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That's not what my objection is about.

An apple and a pear are both fruit, but they are not the same.

You have no respect for what words mean.

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Survival of the Fittest and Health Care

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