There’s a deadly virus - would you sacrifice yours or your child’s life to create a vaccine?

I would never sacrifice either one of my children regardless of how many it would save. I would only sacrifice myself if it meant my children would be amongst those saved.

Not necessarily. Whilst this is in fact Mumsnet, despite the name it has a lot of non parents (childless/infertile, childfree by choice) because of the plethora of varied boards on here.

Well this is mumsnet, so I assume more people on here passed on dna than not. Even if I did all the work of creating them for 9 months and they selfishly came out looking much more like their father 😂.

If the whole world gets wiped out… how will you survive? What will you eat? What if they get poorly? They’d have to watch everyone around them die. You could die (accident, illness , or even old age but at least they’d be adults)and leave them all alone. Then the sibling would die and you’d have one child left, literally all alone in the world.Would you and each other really be enough for them? And so on.

Nope I hate everyone but my own kids and <mostly> DH. My kids need me so if the rest of the world got wiped out meh.

My kids? Absolutely not.

Myself, depends on the certainty of success, the age of my children and whether or not their other parent is still alive. If success was a guarantee (or extremely likely) DH was with the kids and they were a bit older. Then yeah probably, otherwise nope. I'm gonna stay and make sure my kids survive.

I asked DD. She said she probably would do it if there was a high chance of her ending up being the only person alive, because she wouldn’t want that. She definitely gave it a lot more thought than I thought she would.😬

Fair enough, I guess that's another way to do things. I am also basing my reasoning on what I have seen in my children facing a devastating loss and statements they have made. For example, flying with all the family but one of my children recently, he had said that if we all died in a plane crash he'd wish he'd been on the plane too. I'm not sure how my answer would differ if we hadn't had the prior experience.

I have two children and if in an apocalyptic situation all but one of us had to die, I think a coin flip between them would be the fairest way to decide. Then it's just pure luck, and I'm sure either of them (both teenagers) would be able to carry on without the rest of us – they would at least deserve the opportunity to try.

But I can understand your reasoning.

No.

Mine aren't young children. They've been through the loss of a sibling. I know how it affected them. I know how it would affect them to lose their whole family. Therefore I choose myself to be the sole survivor to spare them that. In that way, I'm making the sacrifice for them, even though it leaves me alive.

Bold assumption that they’d be sorry to see you go though? 😂Children are remarkably self centred after all…

So what if I believe the end of humanity might actually not be a bad thing?

No, no way for my kids. Me or DH probably as long as my DC were first in line for the cure. I actually think humans becoming extinct is inevitable and would be the best thing for the natural environment, so no point tinkering at the edges with a vaccine. Bring on Armageddon!

Given the drop in birth rates in many countries, more and more people are in fact fine with their DNA not continuing though.

In the Last of Us it's not just a lot of people dying, it's the end of civilization, possibly the end of humanity. So in that situation, if I believed it would actually create a cure (which seems, frankly, ludicrous) I probably would, yes.

And if I were the child and later watched so many people I loved die, watched then living forever on edge, I'd be angry that I'd been spared and this was the cost.

I think he was a huge coward.

I would definitely sacrifice myself, no question. I'm but a blip. My child? It would depend on their age/level of agency. I could see my daughter putting herself forward and I would resoect that. I wouldn't do so though. We don't 'own' our children.

Nope, sod humanity. I think evolution would have done a pretty poor job if we were all fine for our dna to not continue. Especially since the advent of birth control and us not having 10 children any more.

Yes, and those who say they would let their child live over them, that's not always the kind way. Seven in my family. If six had to die, I'd chose to live because I think the loving thing is to spare them having to experience that kind of grief. I'll take it on myself.

No

@thereisnomeaning "Dying all together in an extinction event, I can accept as natures way, because that way no-one is left behind to suffer."

I definitely agree with this. It is different, somehow.

Never! The public don’t appreciate individual sacrifice, so I’d let em die.

Of course not. Stop drinking 😅

You would ask your 12 year old if he wanted to die and then live with his choice?

😂 yeah right.

No.

I am no martyr or hero and I would not sacrifice a child's life.