Child killing poll

[BjornP]

Side note: the article above says that he was granted Italian citizenship on Monday, but still not allowed to leave. Italian law applies here as well, does it not?

Why would Italian law apply in the UK?

[SuburbanFarmer]

Interesting framing. I'll go with that. So: Ok, the state is a service. So, how do you justify having a legal system in the United States? How do you justify the right and the concept of The State getting to decide who is guilty of committing crimes or not? A man accused and sentenced of a crime is certainly a man that The State does NOT offer a service to, is he now? Hell, how do you justify the right of another citizen to take you to court? Sure, The State is providing a service to ONE party, the guy who dragged you to court, but what about you? It's doing a disservice to you, individually... Does that invalidate the purpose of The State if it acts against your individual interests and wants?

A crime is one person violating the rights of another person. The state's service provision when it comes to law enforcement is acting as an impartial 3rd party between two or more individuals with a grievance against each other

In this case a public hospital representing the NHS and two parents were in conflict. The courts decided the hospital is in the right. Are private citizens not allowed to take state actors to court in the US? Is the American legal system also "The State", or is it an impartial 3rd actor in cases between private citizen and state actors?

I think we’d be a lot happier if that decision was at the very least made by a jury, rather than a judge.

[Heraclius]

So, a braindead kid, with no chance of living. It might be for the best for that child to stop treatment, and let it die.

But by what measure? Financially it makes more sense for the UK to give the child to another country. Unless the child is experiencing terrible pain in his current condition, why would death be the proper path for him to take rather than living on life support? It seems to me that there really is no difference between the kid being dead or alive and so if there is another country willing to take up the burden of paying for the expense of keeping the child alive, then there is no reason the UK should be interfering in the choice between their citizens and another country.

[Speaker to Animals]

But by what measure? Financially it makes more sense for the UK to give the child to another country.

.. Unless they are going to profit from body parts.


Just imagine for a second where the UK is going to be in the future. Man gets in an auto accident. Doctors decide that trying to save him is too risky, and his organs can be harvested for the "greater good".

Guess what happens next..


Fun times when the state is greater than the individual. Fun fucking times.

[Heraclius]

Sure but I imagine if that was the major reason then there would really be no way to defend the UK here. But then again that's what I would have said if this story was purely hypothetical.

[Montegriffo]

Side note: the article above says that he was granted Italian citizenship on Monday, but still not allowed to leave. Italian law applies here as well, does it not?

Why would Italian law apply in the UK?

An important factor that has not been mentioned is that this case went all the way to the European court of Human rights twice. The ultimate decision was not made by the British state. The European court did not find reason to overturn the UK SC decision.

[Ph64]

But by what measure? Financially it makes more sense for the UK to give the child to another country.

.. Unless they are going to profit from body parts.


Just imagine for a second where the UK is going to be in the future. Man gets in an auto accident. Doctors decide that trying to save him is too risky, and his organs can be harvested for the "greater good".

Guess what happens next..


Fun times when the state is greater than the individual. Fun fucking times.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organlegging

The organ bank problem

In Niven's universe, the technology to indefinitely sustain any human organ outside of the body was developed in the early 21st century, greatly simplifying organ transplants. This led to the creation of "organ banks" which, in theory, one could use to extend life indefinitely so long as a compatible organ had been donated at any point, as opposed to a complicated waiting list in combination with limited time to transport the organ to the recipient. In light of this, all forms of burial save complete harvesting of organs for transplant became illegal. This resulted in an increased quality of life, but quickly became its own problem; the banks required donors (i.e. dead people) to operate, but when the death rate is reduced (via the organ banks), the number of donors decreases. Thus, the supply of organs would continually reduce.

Compounding this problem, the high success rate of organ transplants tended to discourage research into other viable medical treatments. As a result, medical research was stagnated to a large extent, focusing primarily on improving transplants and little else. Repairing a failing organ (which could presumably fail again later) was considered secondary to the "complete" solution of replacing the failing organ.

An example in the Known Space universe was that anyone who wore eyeglasses was considered a reasonable candidate for an eye transplant (one or both); whereas in the real world, today's nearsighted population can solve the problem (temporarily) by wearing corrective lenses or (more permanently) by undergoing laser surgery.

Attempts by governments to solve the problem

On Earth, the problem led to a repressive society almost unrecognizable by today's standards. Since the average citizens wished to extend their lives, the world government sought to increase the supply by executing condemned criminals to supply the organ banks. When this failed to meet the demand, citizens would vote for the death penalty for more and more trivial crimes. First violent crimes, then theft, tax evasion, false advertising, and even traffic violations became punishable by the organ banks. This led to a disturbing discovery; in Niven's universe, many actions deemed "criminal" had a genetic propensity, and by harvesting these individuals for their organs, that propensity was eliminated from the gene pool. By the 22nd century, every crime on Earth merited the death penalty - but as a result of generations of summary execution, "Flatlander" psychology was irreversibly transformed into a society of near-total pacifism and submission to authority, which supplied no donors for the organ banks.

"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one."

[Ex-California]

The rights of the parents to determine what's best for the child should supersede those rights of the state, especially when the state is pushing for death the the parents are pushing for life. The legal system is pushing to kill in this case

The state is a service, nothing more. The family unit is infinitely more important than the state

Both agree and disagree on that. The rights of the parents shouldn't always supersede the rights of the child, which could be defined by the state.

For example, circumcision, violence against children and so on. Some parents might consider it a normal way to raise children. The state intervenes, because of the rights of the individual(the child), has been breached by the parents. The state is supposed to protect individual rights, and it therefore makes sense to intervene. Even though they're family, people shouldn't have unlimited power over their family members, because that could also lead to awful shit.

But then again, the parents in this case is pushing for life, and the authorities are pushing for death. I don't think it should matter what the parents are pushing for. In some cases they might be pushing for death, and the state would too, and it would in reality be the same problem. The question remains, is it morally right to stop treatment, when that would mean death? Stopping to feed a person who can't feed itself could be crossing a line. But also, if keeping the child alive causes more harm to it, than letting it die naturally, it could also be considered crossing an ethical line to keep it alive.

It all boils down to what causes the least harm. Don't know what causes the least harm in this case, but we should be REALLY careful when determining actual death is the preferable option to keeping someone alive. Because there are lots of retarded people, who can't speak up for themselves. And if we can determine their death as "less harmful", we're entering dangerous territory. Even if the parents of those retards agree with the state on euthanasia.

Yes. Exactly

[Ex-California]

Interesting framing. I'll go with that. So: Ok, the state is a service. So, how do you justify having a legal system in the United States? How do you justify the right and the concept of The State getting to decide who is guilty of committing crimes or not? A man accused and sentenced of a crime is certainly a man that The State does NOT offer a service to, is he now? Hell, how do you justify the right of another citizen to take you to court? Sure, The State is providing a service to ONE party, the guy who dragged you to court, but what about you? It's doing a disservice to you, individually... Does that invalidate the purpose of The State if it acts against your individual interests and wants?

A crime is one person violating the rights of another person. The state's service provision when it comes to law enforcement is acting as an impartial 3rd party between two or more individuals with a grievance against each other

In this case a public hospital representing the NHS and two parents were in conflict. The courts decided the hospital is in the right. Are private citizens not allowed to take state actors to court in the US? Is the American legal system also "The State", or is it an impartial 3rd actor in cases between private citizen and state actors?

As we all know, how things really are and how they are supposed to be are vastly different. The courts are supposed to be an impartial, separate branch, from the rest of the state

[Otern]

So, a braindead kid, with no chance of living. It might be for the best for that child to stop treatment, and let it die.

But by what measure? Financially it makes more sense for the UK to give the child to another country. Unless the child is experiencing terrible pain in his current condition, why would death be the proper path for him to take rather than living on life support? It seems to me that there really is no difference between the kid being dead or alive and so if there is another country willing to take up the burden of paying for the expense of keeping the child alive, then there is no reason the UK should be interfering in the choice between their citizens and another country.

What makes more sense financially should not be taken into consideration on this. That's a dangerous route to take. And it's probably not what made the NHS and the courts come to their decision in this case.

The only thing that matters is what's the ethical choice regarding the child's life and suffering. It's not an issue of economics, but what's best for the child. It doesn't really matter if Italy then says they're taking over, because the kid is in Britain, and they need to follow British law. Just as they can't send someone to a foreign country for genital mutilation, they can't send a kid to Italy, if they deem that to be more harmful than whatever conclusion they have come to back home. If that conclusion was correct or not, that's an other issue. I don't know.