atheism and children

[Catholic_Lady]

Perhaps you misunderstood the analogy. I am saying that the terrorists would kill both her and her child if she did not kill her child herself. So yes, the child would die regardless. It just depends on whether she does it or not. And if she does, she gets to live. If not, she dies right along with her kid.

If the child would die regardless then the either/or dilemma isn't "you either kill your kid or you die with him," it's "Your kid will die.  Either you kill your kid and you get to live, or I  kill your kid and then I kill you."

Which is still not a great analogy, because, as you clarified in your later post, you're saying that the terrorist is the ectopic pregnancy - but the pregnancy and the embryo cannot be separated in the way you have made it out in your analogy.  The embryo causes the pregnancy.  The pregnancy cannot happen without the embryo.  So in the analogy, it would be more accurate to say that the child is the terrorist.

Perhaps, though, we can come up with a better analogy (and I admit up front that even this analogy has its problems - all analogies do).

Let's say that there are two people (Persons A and B) who are sharing bodily fluids through IVs.  Let's even say that Person A is literally being kept alive by the fluids they get from Person B.  And let's say that Person A contracts a fatal blood disease that will certainly kill them.  Is it immoral for Person B to sever the IV lines between themselves and Person A before Person B contracts the fatal disease and dies as well?

I contend that it is not immoral.  Person B may have consented to helping to keep Person A alive, but that does not mean that Person B then also consented to letting Person A endanger their life.  Person B is not under an obligation to find a roundabout way of severing the IV lines if they can just yank them out of their arm.

Let's take the analogy a little bit further, though.

Let's say that it's not as easy as yanking an IV out of your arm.  Let's say that the two people are connected such that it would take something like surgery to disconnect them.  And let's say that the action Person B would have to take is to inject Person A with a medication directly to their heart that would stop it from beating (thus they couldn't pump blood to Person B and neither infect them with the fatal disease, nor pump the heart-stopping medication back to them (it's a thought experiment, can we go with it?))  Is it immoral for Person B to inject Person A with this medication, effectively killing Person A (in a way more direct manner than simply yanking out an IV) and saving Person B's life?

I still say it's not.  Person A does not have the right to endanger Person B's life, and Person B has the right to take direct lethal action against Person A in order to save their own life, and you have agreed with this sentiment.

I say it absolutely is immoral to do so. And therein lies our differences.