re: #189 jamesfirecat

In the case you raise you are not “condemning him to die”, neither are you in any way responsible for his plight. It is easy to think up many situations where we could intervene, with varying degrees of cost to ourselves to save the lives of people around the world. For example, If I sold all my possessions (and maybe even my kidneys :-) )and used the proceeds to support any of a number of projects in the third world - clean water, malaria prevention, lives would be saved. This would be noble, but not compulsory in any way.

However, If I bring a person into being, I do have a deep and overarching responsibility to them, and killing them would be very wrong. My responsibility does, of course extend beyond birth. A parent who simply deprived his or her new born of liquids to the point of death would be convicted of murder. Whereas someone who refused a strangers request for a cup of tea would not - the issue is responsibility.