Re:Skin too fragile to touch
by ams6110 on Saturday July 11, 2015 @08:13PM
(#9872061)
Good thing we didn't kill him in the womb or in the cradle then, as others on this page are advocating. His life was sadly short, but we are better for having had him.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
To maybe phrase the other comment's concern more formally, the argument of whether or not to abort is filled with case-by-case circumstances, and saying that humanity is better for the contributions of a person without taking into account the extent of the person's or their parent's suffering is far too reductive to stand as an argument.
[dead]
Re:Skin too fragile to touch
by thaumasiotes on Saturday July 11, 2015 @09:53PM
(#9872316)
This viewpoint is a quick recipe for delegitimizing certain political agendas by fiat. I think we could stand to have less of that.
all-caps doesn't help.
If my political stand doesn't alleviate suffering, then it deserves to lose.
Re:Skin too fragile to touch
by pauleastlund on Sunday July 12, 2015 @12:03AM
(#9872544)
Isn't this what every major political figure in America does, constantly? I don't know where you live but here I feel like not a single school shooting, natural disaster, high-profile murder, outbreak of sickness, etc. goes by without major figures from one or both political parties trying to use it to somehow advance their agenda.
It's a little scummy, but yours seems like a bit of an overreaction for a (sadly) extremely common practice.
> "Isn't this what every major political figure in America does, constantly?"
For the love of all that is good, DO NOT use politicians as your gauge for acceptable behavior or rhetoric. I mean seriously...
Re:Skin too fragile to touch
by pauleastlund on Sunday July 12, 2015 @09:29AM
(#9873425)
I get that it didn't come across well, but I wasn't saying "whatever Donald Trump does in a campaign speech is good enough for me," I was saying, "this seems to be a defining characteristic of our political discourse, I get finding it distasteful all-caps yelling about it seems like an over-reaction." I stand by that. Down-vote all you want.
If someone had never been born, someone similar would likely have been born shortly later, perhaps without the same disease.
So your reasoning for treasuring his life over other possibilities doesn't hold.