Janeway's Decision to Kill Tuvix

Discussion in 'Star Trek: Voyager' started by Godless Raven, Apr 11, 2013.

  1. Bad Thoughts

    Bad Thoughts Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Er, no. Tuvok and Neelix could be described as the "parents" of Tuvix, but he is the vessel that contains them, and he is in possession of the body that contains them. Indeed, Tuvok and Neelix only exist theoretically so long as they are inside Tuvix. As with a woman carrying a child, it is her choice to entertain the risk, to sacrifice herself for that child. This one life vs. two lives is a distraction.
     
  2. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Legally women don't always have a choice.
     
  3. Bad Thoughts

    Bad Thoughts Vice Admiral Admiral

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    True. They might just be allowed to die. However, are we going to argue that the societies that would require a woman to die because she is carrying a child is the one that should be emulated in the 24th century?
     
  4. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Obviously I was talking about idiotic religious convictions, but I was also talking about 6 months in. When you are way past that line where the doctors are willing to preform a legal abortion, but some hypothetical woman still really doesn't want to go through with it.

    Killing a glut of cells that might be life, compared to stabbing something that has toes, fingers and a heartbeat with a coat hanger thirty or forty times, are not te same thing.

    The Abortion argument actually works in Neelix and Tuvoks favour, they are fully formed and in charge of lives that deserve to be lived even if it inconveniences the person carrying them.

    In a life or death situation, where a mother carrying a child is at risk, the decision can be made by the mother if she is consious, or family if she is not, to either kill the baby or risk the mother by trying to save both.

    Thing is, that the Tuvix situation was not life and death.

    There was no ticking clock.

    Tuvok and Neelix were fine in there and probably could have still been extracted 20 years later.
     
  5. teacake

    teacake Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    That would have sucked, being extracted 20 years older.
     
  6. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Well, would they have aged?

    Remember TNG Rascals?
     
  7. Brit

    Brit Captain Captain

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    Er, no Bad Thoughts, Tuvix isn't a child because children do not require their parents tissues, and organs to exist, only a sperm and an ovum. The biology does not require the parents to die for their children to live. The real question falls under body autonomy.

    “There’s a concept called bodily autonomy. It’s generally considered a human right. Bodily autonomy means a person has control over who, or what uses their body, for what, and for how long. It’s why you can’t be forced to donate blood, tissue, or organs. Even if you’re dead. Even if you’d have save or improve 20 lives. It’s why someone can’t touch you, have sex with you, or use your body in any way without your continuous consent."

    Tuvix was using someone else's body; he hadn't the right to do so or the permission of those individuals. This concept of bodily autonomy is actually the law of the land in the U.S. Since neither could give informed consent they had to be given their bodies back. And truly Janeway had no choice but to do so, I'm not saying she liked the decision she made but it was the only one she could have made.
     
  8. Bad Thoughts

    Bad Thoughts Vice Admiral Admiral

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    You should reconsider you response: in no way to I associate Tuvix with the unborn child. Rather I associate him with the expectant woman and her rights to determine the course of treatment that may affect her life.
     
  9. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Didn't Tuvix have bodily autonomy too?

    Janeway forced him to sacrifice his tissues to create some bygone lost entities.

    How the conservation of matter/circle of life/closed ecostructure works is that inside any of us is the atoms of almost every one that has every lived, including Caesar and Shakespeare.

    If I could bring Julius Caesar back, and all it would take is finding all his atoms, and put them back together, no matter who I had to dig into to find them, would that colossal death toll be acceptable?
     
  10. teacake

    teacake Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    By bygone you mean last week?
     
  11. Brit

    Brit Captain Captain

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    No since the amalgamated bodies belonged to Neelix and Tuvok to begin with. What I am saying is according to US law (and several other countries), all the rights belong to Tuvok and Neelix. The term is "continuous consent." Meaning not only to Tuvok and Neelix have to give permission, they have to continue to give permission. You cannot even use the body parts of someone declared legally dead without permission.
     
  12. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I'm sure I remember a Grey's Anatomy, maybe something else, where two old geezers got into an argument so huge, that one of them asked for their Kidney back and and the other guy was in such a fuss that he agreed because he didn't want "that assholes" Kidney so much anymore anyway.

    I can see how these real laws can be used to stop an abusive and illegal black market organ trade, but can they also be used to to retrieve stolen organs from out of thieves?

    Have you seen the movie Repo Men? Becuase that's exactly what happens, armed bastards knocking doors down and taking hearts and livers back to the organ bank to be released back to the paying public. (It's not very good.)

    And then there's this Never let Me Go which is about an alternate universe where they figure out clones in the 1950s, but they still have to grow up at normal speed before they are used for parts. Incredibly sad.

    The problem with your consent issue however is that god or the universe doesn't have to ask consent, and that's the nearsighted bugger who created Tuvix.

    Besides, do you really think that any one who hasn't signed away consent from a complete disaster would be allowed to use a transporter? Logically, this is something your parents do when you are born, and you have to ratify as an adult when you turn 18.
     
  13. Melakon

    Melakon Admiral In Memoriam

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    I've not seen it, but from your description it sounds like they ripped off an old Monty Python sketch.
     
  14. MacLeod

    MacLeod Admiral Admiral

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    But we once again come to the transporter accident, they consented to using the transporter with the knowledge that something no matter how remote could go wrong with the transporter process. Something went wrong and as a consequence of their consent to use the transporter they have to abide by the consequences of their consententual decision to use the transporter.
     
  15. hux

    hux Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    But if Tuvix isn't a separate entity and consciousness (with his own rights) and is simply a combination of Tuvok and Neelix then surely his demand to live can easily be construed as proof that Tuvok and Neelix are demonstrably giving their consent....if Tuvix is simply "them" combined then his desire to live is also their desire....and as long as he continuously claims to want to live, they are continuously giving consent
     
  16. Bad Thoughts

    Bad Thoughts Vice Admiral Admiral

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    ^To which should be added that Janeway admits she believes both men would sacrifice themselves for Tuvix. Even if she had the right to speak for them, she knows their answer would favor Tuvix.
     
  17. Pingfah

    Pingfah Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    She should have just blasted Tuvix out of an airlock and killed 2 birds with one stone.

    The loss of Tuvok would have been unfortunate, but Janeway is smart enough to know he would gladly sacrifice himself to save the crew from having to listen to another day of either Neelix or Tuvix's inane babbling, or look at their stupid faces.
     
  18. Drone

    Drone Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    This consideration seems to be a much firmer basis on which to make a reasoned determination of the matter rather than "that's a tough one", "it could go either way", or going along with those that have long since punched their ticket on the Janeway Psycho Express.

    Bearing in mind that this comes from someone who is a scientific idiot savant, minus the savant, I would say look at what this canonical explanation implies. Symbiogenesis is an evolutionary process that points toward cooperation in the synthesis of two different organisms in creating a new and unique one. This, I gather, supplements, but not necessarily supplants, the Darwinian paradigm of the primacy of competition as a driver. Now while in this situation a distinct life has been created, I am not sure I would define it as procreation. Certainly the act that brought Tuvix about was not an elective one that Neelix and Tuvok discerned, cogitated on, and then made an affirmative decision to execute. The examples of symbiogenesis that I have gleaned in my cursory look at the subject do not extend to higher forms and definitely not sentient beings.

    Yet, it seems that there can be a wide variety of causative factors that lead to this outcome ranging over a spectrum of time frames, environmental stresses, etc. It would seem that the chance occurrence that befell N & T would not be out of character to be considered a valid expression of the process and therefore negate the argument of those who might claim Tuvix as an inconsequential "accident" with no legitimate standing to be seen as a co-equal to any one else in Voyager's complement.

    While his integrity and inherent worth as an individual cannot then be diminished, I think it is possible to convey more rights than are warranted to Tuvix that would confer the status of a truly self-determining being, as contradictory at that would seem. He cannot nor, I believe, does he ever claim to unambiguously speak for either of his progenitors, each of whose individual hopes, desires, and aspirations would inevitably become increasingly diffused by Tuvix's burgeoning consciousness.

    While only a hope initially, the Doctor seeks to find a means to return Neelix and Tuvok to their living forms and not just as a symbolic existence. I suppose I would ask that regardless what stratagem he might have ultimately devised to attain this goal, would that process carry any less of a natural rationalization than the one that was randomly ordered? Ultimately, I am not of the opinon that Neelix and Tuvok no longer existed, but simply were not currently present. As such, the effort to bring them back trumps Tuvix's right to unilaterally author his fate. At the same time, I would urge that whatever could be accomplished to maintain him as an autonomous entity be efforted as strenuously and for as long as possible. If for some reason cloning was not an option, have him put into stasis until such time as a solution was available otherwise and be done with it.
     
  19. urbandefault

    urbandefault Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Janeway's big mistake was letting the joined being roam the ship and interact with the crew for a week or however long it was. It was during that period that it started to think of itself as one instead of two, and gave itself a name.

    The joined being should have immediately been put in stasis and kept there until the accident could be reversed.
     
  20. DonIago

    DonIago Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Still bugs me that nobody ever replies to the questions I raise on the subject, but I'll forego that in favor of asking exactly how long Tuvix does exist, since I haven't watched the episode in forever.

    I think it might have been a stronger episode if they'd upped the stakes by making it a month instead of a week. Though the fact that the episode generates this much debate speaks well for its strength...or the persistence of people here. :p