Janeway's Decision to Kill Tuvix

[R. Star]

I said equivalent. Yes it was an accident. Yes it was no fault of Tuvok and Neelix. Neither is dying in a shuttle accident. But sometimes it happens. It's also not the fault of Tuvix that he was the result of the accident. He didn't cause the accident, yet you still insist on assigning blame to him for it. Tuvix is a sentient being with all the rights of anyone else, including not to be summarily executed against their will because Janeway decided it serves the needs of the state... which by all means she's the de facto head of out there. The only thing you could condemn Tuvix for is moral cowardice for not volunteering... but last I checked that's not a capital crime.

Keeping something that doesn't belong to you is a crime.

Tuvix's life doesn't belong to him? So now we get to it... you endorse servitude and slavery in the name of authority just because he's different?

 

[teya]

I am perfectly willing to concede that some people find one side of the argument more appealing than the other, what I am not willing to concede is my right to not be hit over the head with emotional arguments, and questionable preaching from the Tuvix supporter side of the argument.

That works both ways. IMO, telling those who disagree with you that they are anti-Janeway, anti-choice and/or anti-feminist does nothing to help the discussion.

What I do hope is that if I have my body stolen and am murdered for someone else, that my daughter sues the hell out of everyone involved. Again Tuvix isn't the donor, that honor goes to Tuvok and Neelix.

Tuvix stole nothing and murdered no one. A perpretrator has to act. Tuvix didn't exist prior to the accident, therefore couldn't act.

ETA: Not to worry. No one is going to murder you and steal your organs. That's illegal and, as I've made the point over and over in this thread, immoral. It's nice to see finally that you agree with me.

However, for a truly emotional argument!

 

[horatio83]

I don't hate Tuvix, however I do like both Tuvok and Neelix a whole lot better. And that makes neither of us right or wrong, only at odds here. I am perfectly willing to concede that some people find one side of the argument more appealing than the other, what I am not willing to concede is my right to not be hit over the head with emotional arguments, and questionable preaching from the Tuvix supporter side of the argument.

You just admitted that you like Tuvix less than Tuvox and Neelix and then claim that the other folks are using emotional arguments? Seriously?

This is what a rational way to approach the case would look like:
Two people died and one was born. You can reverse this process. Whatever you do, somebody dies / remains dead. There is no easy way out.

There is no Tuvok and Neelix or Tuvix bias in here, it is just boiling down the problem to its basics. Any comparisons with organ donation or whatever or claims that there is a "natural state", be it as it was before or after the accident, is just an attempt to avoid the horror that whatever Janeway decides is wrong and makes her guilty.

 

[Brit]

I don't hate Tuvix, however I do like both Tuvok and Neelix a whole lot better. And that makes neither of us right or wrong, only at odds here. I am perfectly willing to concede that some people find one side of the argument more appealing than the other, what I am not willing to concede is my right to not be hit over the head with emotional arguments, and questionable preaching from the Tuvix supporter side of the argument.

You just admitted that you like Tuvix less than Tuvox and Neelix and then claim that the other folks are using emotional arguments? Seriously?.

Yes Seriously, I will freely admit I am very emotional about this subject. Why do you think I went to all the trouble to research organ donation, so yes I feel very deeply that Janeway made the only decision she could have made, now I have tried (and I am sure failed) in some instances. But I will not deny my gut feelings about this either.

This is what a rational way to approach the case would look like:
Two people died and one was born. You can reverse this process. Whatever you do, somebody dies / remains dead. There is no easy way out.

There is no Tuvok and Neelix or Tuvix bias in here, it is just boiling down the problem to its basics. Any comparisons with organ donation or whatever or claims that there is a "natural state", be it as it was before or after the accident, is just an attempt to avoid the horror that whatever Janeway decides is wrong and makes her guilty.

And you are completely right, every thing else is conjecture on all our parts. Like I said earlier, the women in the US are fighting a battle now over the right to our own bodies, and yes I am very emotional about it. I cannot stress how important I think this is.

 

[horatio83]

I think it is good to feel strongly about an issue. There is nothing wrong with being angry and hot-headed about anything of importance and it is certainly better than being ignorant or cynical or just not caring. But I also think it is necessary to use cold reason to analyze and completely understand a topic one cares about.
Perhaps I am stupid but I fail to see in what way the Tuvix accident is related to organ donation. It's not like some evil doctor took Tuvok and Neelix and cooked a Frankenstein monster out of them. It was rather an accident that happened without the involvement of any agency, it was a symbiotic plant getting into the transporter.

This is what we humans have a problem with, a catastrophe that has no deeper meaning. We are very good at coming up with reasons for something horrible that happened (Pat Robertson and 9/11, euphemisms for being no more like "resting in peace", the ancients sacrificing something to the gods to influence the bad weather) but we have a hard time embracing the total lack of sense of something like the Tuvix accident. There was no higher power involved and there is no meaning to it. Two people die and one was born. It is a total nightmare.

 

[teya]

Perhaps I am stupid but I fail to see in what way the Tuvix accident is related to organ donation. It's not like some evil doctor took Tuvok and Neelix and cooked a Frankenstein monster out of them. It was rather an accident that happened without the involvement of any agency, it was a symbiotic plant getting into the transporter.

I don't think you're stupid. I'm at a loss, myself, and I did my medical ethics thesis on the ethical issues in organ transplantation. Granted that was back in the mid-90s, but I've remained fairly up to date on the technology involved and the ethical issues. I have made reference to live donor transplants, but that's the only place I see any possible correlation, and the argument would benefit Tuvix.

It is, as you say, an episode that puts Janeway in a no-win situation. And the thing is, she knew it. Look at her face at the end of the episode. She's not clapping Tuvok & Neelix on the back and smiling broadly at their return. She says a curt, "Glad to have you back" and walks into the hall where she pauses with a look that says the entire weight of the universe is on her shoulders.

She isn't happy with what she just had to do. She will, however, live with it.

 

[Michael]

It is, as you say, an episode that puts Janeway in a no-win situation. And the thing is, she knew it. Look at her face at the end of the episode. She's not clapping Tuvok & Neelix on the back and smiling broadly at their return. She says a curt, "Glad to have you back" and walks into the hall where she pauses with a look that says the entire weight of the universe is on her shoulders.

She isn't happy with what she just had to do. She will, however, live with it.

I, too, liked how that last bit was played. However, I always thought the issue warranted a somewhat more extensive discussion. Or a discussion at all. The way it is presented – with no-one from the crew, not counting the Doctor, supporting Tuvix heart-breaking pleading to let him live – makes the crew look very cruel. One moment they act like Tuvix' friends, the next they assist in his murder.

I would have been nice, if they had presented some kind of coda to the episode. Just a little scene right after (or before) the execution on sickbay, where Janeway gets the chance to voice some sort of ambivalence about the thing she has just done. The way it is shown makes it look like a much too easy decision for her.

 

[JanewayRulz!]

I see Janeway as the ultimate sin eater. She not only took on the sin, she committed the sin to save her 2 crewmen.

This vid is stopped at the Tuvix mark.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQgLRrSVsZ0&feature=player_detailpage#t=92s

Yeah... I "know" it was wrong, but I also know IF I was Tuvok, or Neelix, then I would want her to sav me.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQgLRrSVsZ0[/yt]

I know, I know, it is selfish, it is "wrong", but I would still want her to do it. And by "her" doing it, not only do I get to live but I don't even have to carry the sin of Tuvix' death on my conscience. SHE did that... for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQgLRrSVsZ0&feature=player_detailpage#t=121s

She didn't even pretend it was right.

She didn't even pretend he didn't exist.

She turned to watch Tuvix die, as Neelix & Tuvok were "reborn".

And then she left, without a word to the men she saved.

 

[R. Star]

Yeah that scene were Tuvix was reaching out to anyone, begging for someone to support him was just plain powerful and awesome in it's morbidness.

 

[teya]

I see Janeway as the ultimate sin eater.

That's a terrific analogy.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Perhaps I am stupid but I fail to see in what way the Tuvix accident is related to organ donation. It's not like some evil doctor took Tuvok and Neelix and cooked a Frankenstein monster out of them. It was rather an accident that happened without the involvement of any agency, it was a symbiotic plant getting into the transporter.

I don't think you're stupid. I'm at a loss, myself, and I did my medical ethics thesis on the ethical issues in organ transplantation. Granted that was back in the mid-90s, but I've remained fairly up to date on the technology involved and the ethical issues. I have made reference to live donor transplants, but that's the only place I see any possible correlation, and the argument would benefit Tuvix.

It is, as you say, an episode that puts Janeway in a no-win situation. And the thing is, she knew it. Look at her face at the end of the episode. She's not clapping Tuvok & Neelix on the back and smiling broadly at their return. She says a curt, "Glad to have you back" and walks into the hall where she pauses with a look that says the entire weight of the universe is on her shoulders.

She isn't happy with what she just had to do. She will, however, live with it.

Tuvok is an organ.

Neelix is an organ.

Were they donated?

No.

Were they stolen?

No.

(Maybe it's comparable to being switched at birth?

Can you blame the mother for loving the wrong baby, or the children for stealing each others toys and crapping in some one elses diapers?)

But Janeway retroactively decided that because "Tuvix could not speak for Tuvok and Neelix" permission for the hybrids conception, and the continued re-ratification of their ongoing existence, would never have been given if the two original components had been allowed to decide for themselves before the meld and then periodically after integration to weigh if Tuvix is worth their deaths and then periodically ad infinitum still worth their deaths.

No permission = stolen.

(Why am I thinking about a mother refusing to breast feed because they're sure that their baby is an asshole?)

HA!

"It's easier to say sorry than please."

 

[Gojira]

Yeah that scene were Tuvix was reaching out to anyone, begging for someone to support him was just plain powerful and awesome in it's morbidness.

Heart breaking scene for sure. You know that Janeway made the right choice but that scene makes me question it. I can see this episode on a level of logig versus emotions.

 

[cabby]

And when you don't deconstruct Tuvix once you know how to restore Tuvok and Neelix, then you have murdered them. The questioning point is not the accident, but later when the ability to restore two people to the bodies that they in fact own. To not do so is not only murder, it is most likely against the law. The right to your own body is the argument and not who is murdering who.

That's the moral equivalent of saying it's murder not to harvest someone's organs against their will to save the lives of two terminally ill patients.

Except the evidence we saw shows these two persons were not terminally ill. Their so call illness was a result of an accident. No fault of their own. They are sentient people, and they have a long standing claim on the property in question. Tuvix is not the donor in this situation he is the recipient.

It is more like a sniper taking out someone holding two people hostage.

Of course Tuvok and Neelix are not terminally ill. They are dead. Their consciousness and brain function have ceased. They are not sentient, because they do not exist.

The sniper analogy doesn't at all fit. Tuvix is not committing a crime and has done nothing to perpetrate this. He is a sentient being. That he exists due to an accident is irrelevant. Only his status as a sentient being is relevant.

If we are going to stick with the flawed organ donation analogy, it would be more like a person donating a kidney, having their remaining kidney fail and a attempt to take it back from the recipient.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Tuvix may not be committing a crime, as such, but remember the argument posited earlier - that Tuvix, as a Starfleet officer (due to Tuvok's memories) should be willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good. I'm having a hard time being against this argument. If Tuvix insists on his own life, is this not contrary to that spirit of self-sacrifice that every Starfleet officer is expected to have?

 

[Dream]

Tuvix may not be committing a crime, as such, but remember the argument posited earlier - that Tuvix, as a Starfleet officer (due to Tuvok's memories) should be willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good. I'm having a hard time being against this argument. If Tuvix insists on his own life, is this not contrary to that spirit of self-sacrifice that every Starfleet officer is expected to have?

I don't see Tuvix as part of Voyager's crew, he was clearly a new type of life form.

Besides, Worf never donated his blood the the dying Romulan even for the greater good. Picard could have ordered him to, but he didn't. In the end Worf kept his respect for his captain.

 

[R. Star]

Tuvix may not be committing a crime, as such, but remember the argument posited earlier - that Tuvix, as a Starfleet officer (due to Tuvok's memories) should be willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good. I'm having a hard time being against this argument. If Tuvix insists on his own life, is this not contrary to that spirit of self-sacrifice that every Starfleet officer is expected to have?

I don't see Tuvix as part of Voyager's crew, he was clearly a new type of life form.

Besides, Worf never donated his blood the the dying Romulan even for the greater good. Picard could have ordered him to, but he didn't. In the end Worf kept his respect for his captain.

That's what made The Enemy a great episode. Worf really surprised me in that one when he didn't do the "right" thing by saving the Romulan, who by his own admission didn't want the "klingon filth" in his body anyways.

Even as Bochra and Geordi built a bridge, Worf and his Romulan still had a long way to go. You wonder if Season 7 of DS9 Worf would've done it. Still, it's a very... real... episode.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I don't see Tuvix as part of Voyager's crew, he was clearly a new type of life form.

Tuvix had all of Tuvok's knowledge and experiences. He was clearly qualified to be the tactical officer if required.

 

[R. Star]

I don't see Tuvix as part of Voyager's crew, he was clearly a new type of life form.

Tuvix had all of Tuvok's knowledge and experiences. He was clearly qualified to be the tactical officer if required.

The only nitpick I have is he should've had one of those "provisional" rank badges... heck, Paris should've too though. Janeway does play favorites.

 

[Dream]

Tuvix had all of Tuvok's knowledge and experiences. He was clearly qualified to be the tactical officer if required.

Tuvix also had all of Neelix's knowledge and experiences.

Janeway would have no right to order Neelix to save another at the cost of his own life.

 

[cabby]

Tuvix may not be committing a crime, as such, but remember the argument posited earlier - that Tuvix, as a Starfleet officer (due to Tuvok's memories) should be willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good. I'm having a hard time being against this argument. If Tuvix insists on his own life, is this not contrary to that spirit of self-sacrifice that every Starfleet officer is expected to have?

Would you sacrifice yourself to bring back someone from the dead? (Which Tuvok & Neelix are).

This, however, is an irrelevant point. While Tuvix's actions can be debated morally, that is not the question we are asking. The question regards the morality of Janeway's actions (the arbitrary killing of a sentient being in order to save another).