Should people die for you?

Crubeens

Apologies if this is in the wrong forum:

I was watching the film The Island the other day, and was very interested in the idea that people's 'clones' are bred so that they can live longer, or forever. The doctor behind it thought he was perfectly justified, as he wasn't orchestrating death, he was creating and prolonging life.

This notion isn't a million miles away from Hitler's concentration camps, where doctors experimented on young jews all in the name of scientific research, with an end to improving the health and lives of 'real' people (Aryians).

I'm sure some of the reasons many of us are alive and well today are indirectly down to cruel and fatal experiments on humans and animals, so it probably safe to say that people have died so that we could live.

Do you think that as long as we don't really know how these medical advances came about, we're happy enough to reap their benefits?
To put it another way, if a doctor told you that you or a close family member would die unless you consented to a treatment whose development had involved innocent people's deaths, what would you do?

Bri

You might wanna use the

tag for the Island information...

eth0_

Bri wrote:

You might wanna use the

tag for the Island information...

In fairness, he revealed no more than the trailer for 'The Island' does..

AdMMM

No, I don't think people should die for you. However, as you said it may very well have happened and whats happened has happened. By not consenting to this "treatment" you are depriving yourself or a loved one of life, you can look at it 2 ways.

One way is that the person who died in order to make this treatment possible, is dead. Nothing can change that. The other way is that if you don't consent to the treatment then the person who died in order to make this progress possible will have died a pointless death, i.e the only valid point of their death was to make this medicine possible. If nobody takes this medicine then the only point to that persons death would be void! You would also be making sure of your own pointless death, you could have lived but essentially chose not to.

So to sum it all up, yes I would consent to the use of this medicine, the person is dead and nothing can be done about that also If I don't take the medicine then the persons death would have been pointless!

Bri

eth0_ wrote:

In fairness, he revealed no more than the trailer for 'The Island' does..

Fair enough - I didn't see the trailer as I'm anal enough to try and avoid them; I was catering for those like me No biggie.

Dades

Crubeens wrote:

To put it another way, if a doctor told you that you or a close family member would die unless you consented to a treatment whose development had involved innocent people's deaths, what would you do?

To agree with what Murderer (ironic) says, it would be a pointless gesture to refuse the treatment.

There are a couple of circumstances where this may not be the case.

If the research that is leading to deaths is still ongoing (unlikely, I know), it would be morally wrong to agree to the treatment as it would encourage what is essentially the murder of innocents.

If you were involved in or supported the initial research that led to other people's deaths in the name of your cure, then you would also be morally wrong to accept the treatment. But then again morals wouldn't be your strong point in this circumstance.

Crubeens

Fair points, but I'm not convinced that just becuase you didn't have anything to do with the research itself, then you're free of any blame. By agreeing to the treatment, are you not almost approving of it, and perhaps making further unethical treatments more likely?

I think that the way 'crops' of chickens are bred for fast food spots like KFC is cruel and unethical, but the chickens are going to be killed whether I eat there or not, so why shouldn't I enjoy a nice chicken zinger twister?

I know the analogy is slightly different than saving lives etc, but the principal is the same. The guinea pigs might be dead by the time I need the treatment, but if I agree to it then the doctors have no reason to put an end to cruel experiments.

Victor

Crubeens wrote:

I was watching the film The Island the other day, and was very interested in the idea that people's 'clones' are bred so that they can live longer, or forever. The doctor behind it thought he was perfectly justified, as he wasn't orchestrating death, he was creating and prolonging life.

Thats sick, did that really happen?

Dades

Crubeens wrote:

The guinea pigs might be dead by the time I need the treatment, but if I agree to it then the doctors have no reason to put an end to cruel experiments.

But here you're assuming that there is a risk of further innocent human subjects being murdered for medical research.

I don't believe this still happens. There are plenty of people willing to test new medications for cash, but the idea that pharmaceutical companies have secret human testing labs is too Hollywood for me.

Once you take this factor out, then it becomes a pointless gesture to refuse a treatment. You had nothing to do with the original research, and the only people who will be affected by your decision will be you and your loved ones. Just because you accept a treatment don't mean you retrospectively approve of how the information was gathered. You cannot be blamed for something that happened outside of your knowledge in the past, that will never be repeated.

Regarding the KFC chickens, if you have a moral objection to how they are reared, well then yes, eating a zinger burger is somewhat hypocritical. This is because, although in an almost negligible way, you are still supporting an ongoing practice.

AdMMM

The Atheist wrote:

But here you're assuming that there is a risk of further innocent human subjects being murdered for medical research.

I don't believe this still happens. There are plenty of people willing to test new medications for cash, but the idea that pharmaceutical companies have secret human testing labs is too Hollywood for me.

Once you take this factor out, then it becomes a pointless gesture to refuse a treatment. You had nothing to do with the original research, and the only people who will be affected by your decision will be you and your loved ones. Just because you accept a treatment don't mean you retrospectively approve of how the information was gathered. You cannot be blamed for something that happened outside of your knowledge in the past, that will never be repeated.

Regarding the KFC chickens, if you have a moral objection to how they are reared, well then yes, eating a zinger burger is somewhat hypocritical. This is because, although in an almost negligible way, you are still supporting an ongoing practice.

You just hit the nail on the head there, and saved me a lot of typing in the process