[Peace-discuss] abortion rights argument

[John Fettig]

Ricky,

On Sun, Mar 29, 2009 at 8:47 PM, Ricky Baldwin <baldwinricky at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Consider a person who wakes up one day in a hospital bed with another person
> lying in the same bed.  The other person is sleeping.  Upon inspection, the
> first person discovers to her horror that the second person is attached to
> her by a bundle of tubes and cords of various sizes and shapes.  It turns
> out the other person cannot live without her, at least for a number of
> months, and even separating the two (prematurely) will result in death of
> the other.  Allowing the attachment to remain could cause death to the first
> person, but the doctors say there is not a huge chance of that in today's
> hospitals.

Does the ethics of this scenario change if you start the story this way:

You are driving in your car, and run a red light.   The person you run
into is hurt badly, and you are unconscious.  The doctors determine
that the only way for the person you hit to survive is the bundle of
tubes you describe, and so they implement this while you are out.

> However there is a safe, clean, legal alternative, not too awfully
> expensive, that will terminate the connection and the other person's life.

I want to point out that being (safe, clean, legal, cheap) is not a
precondition for being ethical.

John