In which moral system does possibility of humanity transfer judgment to a single individual that isn't the possible-human in question where consultation with others is permitted by time and circumstance?

Busitng out the Simpsons references... If I hear a voice from the bottom of a well but don't know if it's Bart's 2-way radio or little Timmy, I am very much not permitted by any reasonable ethic in making a decision that it is a radio and dismissing it out of hand, I mostly certainly do not get to drop a grenade down there, I am morally required to bring others in on the decision and we must establish that it is a radio very, very firmly before abandoning the well.





Rebuttal: Adoption, remarks complete



I acknowledge it's a Catch-22, hence my irritation with you. I am not making light of Roland's argument but pointing out the tragic paradox of the situation. I could not in good faith aid someone whose reason I had good cause to doubt by following their planned action. I would have to evaluate it and justify it myself, I could not simply concede the decision to them then assist them in carrying it out. I could make a case that others could make the decision yea or nay for them, or that we could not blame someone who did it on their own. What I can't do is make a case for assisting someone in carrying out a decision they alone are considered allowed to make when I have every reason to believe the justification for that decision is itself cause to question their competence to make the decision.



I said no such thing. I said the obvious, that the situation does not necessarily effect the doctor's soundness of mind. I have no cause to believe any non-friend or non-relative will be significantly inclined to be irrational specifically because of the circumstances.

*IF* we assumed that a fetus was or most likely was human, *then* a doctor would not be justified in ending their life, actually pretty much period unless it was a situation of triage. Again, ethical conundrum. If the fetus is a person then the doctor, as a doctor, can do no harm, but regardless the doctor has no business making life-ending decisions without a medical emergency on the say so of someone who is not only not the life to be ended but is also claiming justification to end the life from the mental trauma they will/are experiencing and presumably are operating already under extreme mental trauma from the rape.

Yes, it's a Catch-22... that's the point.