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I recently had a debate deciding a very difficult question. The situation is: a couple has a baby and they are housing the wife's mentally ill sister. The wife and the sister lost there parents and the sister, at the age of 18 at the time, supported her younger sister, the wife.
The husband comes home one night to find his wife asleep on the couch and the sister in the baby's room scratching her arm to the point where her arm is bleeding. The baby remains unharmed. The sister has been to three different mental institutions, in one of which she was raped by one of the other patients. As long as she has her pills, she is stable.
The husband felt that the sister should leave because he was afraid for their child, but the wife wished for her to stay, because she is family. At the beginning, I was undecided, but leaning towards the husband's side. I thought that maybe the reason for that was because I was being prejudice towards the sister. Eventually the argument was brought out that at the home, the sister had the family's love and care, but there was no professional help for her and the baby had the constant possibility of being harmed. At a mental institution, she had the professional help, but no love.
I eventually drew the only connection I could possibly think of. It is stretched and somewhat weak. First I need to say that I am an animal lover and that we as humans are animals as well, so I draw no distinction when it comes to identifying whether or not an animal is a person. All living things have a "person"ality after all. Secondly, in the fourth grade, I had a dog who passed away. He did not die, because one of his systems failed him, he was put to sleep, but he was physically ill. He had a heart disease and also a liver disease. We couldn't give him medicine for his heart without hurting his liver and we couldn't give him medicine for his liver without hurting his heart, so we took him out of his misery by putting him to sleep.
The connection between my dog and the sister is there were two solutions that were going to hurt them either way. During class I hadn't completely thought this out and I said, "This is going to be harsh, but I think the sister should die." I should have said," I think the sister should be put to sleep," to begin with. Now all my classmates think I'm a harsh and cruel person. My argument supporting my belief at the time was only, "she's done what she can in life, she should just die," I would like to add, "so we may take her out of her misery."
To inflict pain upon one's self is to distract from another pain. As a friend would jokingly offer when you're complaining about an insignificant sore or pain of any sort, "would you like me to punch you to distract you from that," you either smile, laugh, and say no or just stare at them and they laugh at you. The sister was causing pain to herself when she was in her mental state. I believe a lot in sub-conscience activity, therefore, I think she was sub-consciously distracting herself from another pain. In which case, I think she should be taken out of her misery.
Please understand, I am not homicidal, suicidal, or for that matter genocidal. And also, if you wish to share your own belief, please refrain from saying I'm wrong by instead simply stating only your belief and argument.
OmniMaestro · Sun Oct 19, 2008 @ 06:52am · 0 Comments |
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