If you save a life, are you responsible for it?

[suarezguy]

If so, to what extent and for how long?

This idea has sometimes been used on Star Trek and otherwise to argue that we therefore shouldn't save lives and create that responsibility relationship and I think the response is generally that the idea is not valid. But is it nonetheless actually valid and compelling, does it sound so aside from the implication that would deter action? If it is valid then is that in turn a valid compelling reason to not save lives or can and should the ideas be decoupled?

 

[Gov Kodos]

Pro-Life types don't feel responsible for the lives they claim to be saving. Shouldn't they be?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Saving a life is an absolute good, but it doesn't obligate you to be responsible for that life afterward.

 

[Relayer1]

Saving a life is an absolute good, but it doesn't obligate you to be responsible for that life afterward.

This.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The Talmud said it best:

"Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire."

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Only in particular circumstances. The argument in prime directive Star Trek episodes of "Whaaat if they grow up to be the next Hitler???" is nonsense.

But say you knew for a fact the person was a serial killer, I think you'd have some responsibility for their next victims. This isn't a concern for a random stranger because the odds the person is a serial killer are extremely low. You're not responsible if you save a random stranger who turns out to be a serial killer. But if you know for a fact the person is going continue doing harm, there is some responsibility there.

 

[valkyrie013]

It really depends on the culture or in Star Trek since the planet
If you save someone's life their life becomes yours and a matter of way like Chewbacca on Star Wars has a life debt and they go with
the other person till they say they're alive or pay it off in a way
but a normal thing is you save, life be grateful move on. If you have the means, some type of reward, but that's about it.

But in general, no your not responsible.

Example
you give $5 to a homeless person you expect maybe they go get food. but in reality they go buy some alcohol. Are you responsible for that person buying alcohol or drugs? no you did a good deed by giving the person money, what they do with it is up to them and not your responsibility.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

We should all do good things because we want to, not because we have to.

 

[Timewalker]

So far the conversation has been human/human saving/responsibility.

I saved a feral kitten from death by starvation/hypothermia. Did that make me responsible for his future welfare?

Definitely, since he was too young to fend for himself and had nobody else to continue to care for him. I adopted him and he was young enough that he decided I was his new mom (we never found out what happened to his mother and siblings). I had that cat for 14 wonderful years.

 

[Oddish]

But if you know for a fact the person is going continue doing harm, there is some responsibility there.

And in a related context, the unspeakable can become understandable. Such as approaching a certain house in Braunau am Inn, Austria, on April 20, 1889... with a pillow in your hands.

 

[XCV330]

I don't think there is one single answer for that. If you have saved a life you have done an enormity of good. But the enormity of the needs of the world would crush any individual if they suddenly took on the responsibilities of every living thing in need that crossed paths. @Timewalker brings up a good caveat, if the recipient of the act is still in just as bad a state as it was before.

If I pull an abandoned infant off the street corner but leave it laying beside a trash can I've basically just committed murder. That doesn't mean I have to raise the baby. But I have to follow up, get the baby to authorities that can continue the care and take on the burden of responsibility. That is one reason why we have those functions in society. Individuals simply can't manage everything.

If I were to save someone from OD'ing, I'm still not qualified to get them clean. If I were a drug counselor, perhaps that answer would have to be modified somewhat, but I still probably would not be in a good position to suddenly be the addict's sole care source, if only by reason of attachment.

Detachment is something we tend to think of as a professional skill, but it can be just as important to functioning in a just and peaceful society as love, I think, if not moreso.

 

[Oddish]

If I pull an abandoned infant off the street corner but leave it laying beside a trash can I've basically just committed murder. That doesn't mean I have to raise the baby. But I have to follow up, get the baby to authorities that can continue the care and take on the burden of responsibility. That is one reason why we have those functions in society. Individuals simply can't manage everything.

That relates to a query often directed at pro-lifers: would you be willing to take responsibility for this child? And it is a fair question. If it were a healthy infant, though I couldn't care for it myself (as a single person with severely limited resources) I could find literally hundreds of couples eager to adopt it. But a child with extreme disabilities could be another matter.

 

[XCV330]

That relates to a query often directed at pro-lifers: would you be willing to take responsibility for this child? And it is a fair question. If it were a healthy infant, though I couldn't care for it myself (as a single person with severely limited resources) I could find literally hundreds of couples eager to adopt it. But a child with extreme disabilities could be another matter.

My grandmother on the father's side had 13 children. Her funeral was enormous. Our kinfolk and extended clan came out in force, and it was as if the town she lived in grew a new town. I know she had over 100 great grandchildren. However not all of the children was she the birth mother too. They were all born into the great depression in a southern Appalachian coal mining town that between the UMW/Rockefeller wars was getting the worst of it on all sides. Churches were small affairs, mostly holy roller experiences. There were no nearby orphanages, and ones within driving distance were from what stories I've been told, horrible. So she took kids in. If she didn't, they would have died, or wound up worse. She'd known better days, but from that point on the family was poor. It was her choice. I don't know how much of that choice was actually my grandfather. He died of black lung when I was a baby. I never knew the man. I must assume he also played a part. His work in the mines and the Southern RR helped keep everyone fed. The generation previous had been a lot more dashing with money and a murderous patriach. But granny made sure kids got fed. She lived on welfare and her dead husband's class action against the mine in later life. She kept on giving.

But no, it wasn't optimal. It's not supposed to work that way. I am not going to get sidetracked into a discussion about abortion. I have a feeling you don't enter into any single conversation without a wet blanket political agenda, from past experience. But you're not the first to bring it up in this, thread, so I'll bite.

I would say that the point of asking an Anti-Abortion (Pro-Life is about as descriptive as Pro breathing.. apart from nihilists and murderers, we're all pretty much pro-life) activist to raise babies instead is pointless. They're not going to get the opportunity. You don't get to decide to force someone to have a baby in return for which you must agree to raise the baby. We don't live in that era of jurisprudence, and King Solomon isn't threatening to slice whoresons in twain to get the fake mother to confess to Maury Povich. Yes, there are those that could, or would raise the babies, yes there are state functions for care of infants, regardless of the quality of life. But it has very little bearing on the original question. Nice try.

 

[Oddish]

1. Your grandmother sounds like a very admirable person.
2. Taking responsibility for the life you save? It's practically the topic title verbatim.
3. I didn't come up with the terms. Few pro-choice people are actually pro-abortion. Some are even parents.
4. Nice try to do what, exactly? Trust me, I was NOT making an anti-abortion argument (you would know if I was).

 

[JirinPanthosa]

And in a related context, the unspeakable can become understandable. Such as approaching a certain house in Braunau am Inn, Austria, on April 20, 1889... with a pillow in your hands.

For that to be moral you'd need absolute knowledge of the future, of course.

I think a fair question to ask to pro lifers is, if there existed a procedure to transplant the unborn baby from the mother's body into yours (Whether male or female), would you agree to undergo that procedure to prevent the abortion? You might say, the pro-lifer didn't have sex, he's not responsible. Okay, so then transplant it to the baby's father, see if he agrees to it. If the pro-lifer father had to make the same sacrifices the mother made to have the baby, would he *really* be willing to make them? Usually not.

If men had to give nine months of their lives every time they caused a pregnancy, we'd have a lot less pro-lifers.

 

[Oddish]

For that to be moral you'd need absolute knowledge of the future, of course.

I think a fair question to ask to pro lifers is, if there existed a procedure to transplant the unborn baby from the mother's body into yours (Whether male or female), would you agree to undergo that procedure to prevent the abortion? You might say, the pro-lifer didn't have sex, he's not responsible. Okay, so then transplant it to the baby's father, see if he agrees to it. If the pro-lifer father had to make the same sacrifices the mother made to have the baby, would he *really* be willing to make them? Usually not.

If men had to give nine months of their lives every time they caused a pregnancy, we'd have a lot less pro-lifers.

Regarding your first: In one of Stephen King's stories, a character states that if Hitler HAD been killed (accidentally or by design), the butterfly effect would have actually made things far worse; he revisits this theme in "11/22/63". So really, ANY major change in the timeline is problematic. Especially if it prevents your own birth, which preventing WWII probably would.

Regards your second: Honestly, if I knew that the baby was healthy, that my almost 50 year old male body could physically survive the pregnancy and birth, and that the child would be cared for if I passed on before he/she reached adulthood... I would probably agree.

Nonetheless, I understand your point; it actually mirrors mine. It's easy to wave a sign outside Planned Parenthood. It's tough to commit to nine hard months of pregnancy and the lifelong journey of parenting.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

It's tied up in the way, when it's found a man and a woman had an affair, the man gets more popular and the woman gets less popular. The cultural paradigm that it's the man who gets to control sex, so for any sexual encounter the man is the conquerer and the woman scandalously allowed herself to be conquered. It was never about the child's life, it's about not letting the woman get away with her shameful physical concession. If these people really cared about the child's life they'd take better care of the child after it was born.

If you offered pro lifers a deal, okay we'll outlaw abortion, but every child automatically gets free health care and your taxes are going to pay for it, and contraceptives are distributed for free to anyone who wants it they'd turn it down in a second.

And by the way, the quickest way to reduce the number of abortions? Free contraceptives and robust sex education. More things pro lifers are against.

That's a good point about the Butterfly Effect though. There's no guarantee that Hitler rising to power in Germany didn't prevent some other dictator from becoming even more powerful, and more successful. I think for the purposes of this argument we have to pretend we are a psychic living in 1889 and there are no time travel issues, since that overcomplicates the moral question. But you're a psychic who can perfectly see the current course of history, but can't see the effects of your change until you've made it. Sometimes you have to play the odds, no matter what happened, it's not likely to be worse than genocide. Sometimes it is picking the right gamble. Just like that stranger you're deciding whether or not to save is more likely to have a positive impact on the world than be a serial killer.

 

[Oddish]

Agreed. I don't know if I would have the stomach to use that pillow, but if I had an adult version of him in front of me, I would not hesitate. One man dies, 11 million people live.

As for contraception, I must not be like most pro-lifers, because I'm totally Ok with free and discreet birth control. It should be:
1. Safe.
2. As reliable as possible.
3. Long term in nature. Good luck getting a kid to use the methods that have to be initiated right before intercourse.
4. Safely reversible, with no risk of causing infertility.

Every child conceived should be planned, should be wanted. I firmly believe that.

 

[Doom Shepherd]

Yes, but not in the way that most people think.
If it was the will of the universe that you die, and I save you, then I have altered the deal. (Insert labored mechanical breathing here) Your life is MINE now. I will do with it as I wish. It ends when I say.
I saved your life. Make me a meatball sandwich.
I saved your life, that kidney is mine now.

 

[Captain_Nick]

No, of course not. Wtf.