Would you REALLY sacrifice your partner for your child’s life?

[SleepyBaaaa]

Lonnng time lurker, first post.
Read an interesting thread about whether children or partner come first. Lots of comments along the lines of ‘I’d die for my child. If I had to, I’d push my partner under a bus to save my child.’ Like the trolley problem argument.
Obviously very, very unlikely you’ll ever have to do this- fingers crossed!!
So here’s another unrealistic scenario but based around health issues- a far more realistic threat to life than a runaway bus!
Your child needs a rare medical match to save their life. They have limited awareness of the world but experience happiness and could live a fairly long life with the provision of care. Your partner is a match. You can’t be a living donor. If you could get away with it, would you murder your partner so the transplant could take place and save your child’s life? Or would you encourage your partner to commit suicide? What if you were the match?
In other words, if you’re happy to be a hero to save your child’s life, is the urge strong enough that you’d also be a villain?
Would you go to jail for your child for a very serious crime and pretend you committed their crime, because you think they’d not survive in jail?
AIBU to think a parental urge to save and protect at all costs is only truly held by a relatively small number of people?

I would never murder my husband or kill myself to save my child in the situation you describe. I also wouldn't admit to their crime. As some other PP's said, if it was an emergency situation and I could only try to save one I would try to save my child.

@Sisterwives

I'd rather fight a bear. I'd pull his little red t-shirt over his head so he couldn't see then i'd run away.

This

Yes, to save my child I would definitely kill my partner.

@SpongebobNoPants

No I would not kill my partner to save my child I also wouldn’t kill myself to save my children (in the scenario you described)

If there was a house fire and my children were trapped in one room and my partner trapped in the other and I only had enough time to break down one door and save the occupants then I would save my children.
I would also risk my own life trying to save my children in a situation like this.

But would I kill my partner to have his organs for my child? Absolutely not.

I love my children and my partner differently but equally and wouldn’t want to live without either of them.

Also my children will grow up and live their own lives, and my partner will still be here with me forever. He comes first in a lot of circumstances and our relationship is incredibly important for everyone’s happiness.

This. And would I lie to go to prison for my child? Not a chance - if they are an adult and had done something prison worthy, then they need to deal with the consequences of their actions. It is not a parents job to save adults from being adults

No, I don't think many people at all would do that and it is not the same as "choosing who to save"

You can't say until you've been there. My building was affected by a terrorist attack and half of the marshalls ran away! These are the people who are trained to deal with such situations. In my husband's building, where no-one was hurt, the first aider was screeching and sobbing hysterically. When you are in a state of panic, you simply can't think straight or predict how you will react.

Wtf is wrong with you? 🤷🏼‍♀️

No, I don't think many people would murder their partner, or anyone, in that scenario. People were trying to describe the depth of their feelings rather than a thought-out plan! In general, people don't know how they'd react. Lots of people on that thread also said they'd kill themselves if their child died, or even their partner - in reality, children do die and their parents very rarely kill themselves, and being widowed is more common than women outliving their partners and the vast, vast majority of widows carry on living their lives. A situation can be unimaginable beforehand but that doesn't mean you wouldn't live through it if it happened.

This ^^

I was widowed two years ago. I'm not going to lie - suicide crossed my mind on more then one occasion. I'm still here, albeit reluctantly. It's a difficult life, but beginning to see flashes of happiness.

When you're thrown into these situations, you hardly ever react the way you think you would.

Running into a blazing building to save your kids? Yes without a doubt most people would do this. Murdering your partner to save them? It's a different scenario and I don't many people, if anyone, would actually be able to go through it with actually faced with that choice.

Good cannot come out of bad. You can't make a beautiful and loving situation by introducing evil.

The beauty of campaigners and charities is that they work with passion to make prisons better places for those who have needed to go there, and they campaign and raise money for research and services to make living with illness and disability more joyful. (Original post highlights the truth of happiness coexisting with medical difficulties.)

And you cannot control the course of life with single actions or plans, there are too many unforeseen twists and turns to life, but you can seem to smooth and push aside the brambles covering life's path by making acts of love and kindness.

I would not do something that I felt was deeply wrong to save my child and I hope they wouldn't do that for me or for anyone. It's not about their replaceability: it is about my rights as a human being not to act against my principles.

Thankfully, there is absolutely no way the first scenario would work: no hospital would use the organs of a person who suddenly turned up mysteriously dead just at the moment someone close to them needed an organ. It would become a crime scene and the body would not be released.

In the second scenario- the point of sending someone to jail is to keep other people safe, either as a deterrent (to them and other) from further crime or (in a really bad case) simply by denying them access to other potential victims. If an innocent person took their place that would defeat the purpose. And it would make a mockery of the justice system which is (on the whole) there to keep us safe. As contramary said, perverting the course of justice. Justice matters, once we start acting as if it didn't, the foundations of society start to crumble. Also, I really think my rights as a human being involve not being shamed for something I didn't do.

Didn’t even read the scenario

I wold sacrifice anything or anyone including myself for my children in any scenario.

If me torturing a child would mean my own child isn’t tortured - I would do it.

If me pushing my partner off a cliff so my child isn’t pushed off a cliff, I’d do it.

If me donating my heart, lungs and kidneys to an ax murderer and rapist means my child doesn’t die - I’d do it.

All of the above without hesitation

@Wannabefarmer

I'd sacrifice ex DP for a jaffa cake. Smug twat that he is.

A lemon and lime Jaffa cake?

@SleepyBaaaa

Lonnng time lurker, first post. Read an interesting thread about whether children or partner come first. Lots of comments along the lines of ‘I’d die for my child. If I had to, I’d push my partner under a bus to save my child.’ Like the trolley problem argument. Obviously very, very unlikely you’ll ever have to do this- fingers crossed!! So here’s another unrealistic scenario but based around health issues- a far more realistic threat to life than a runaway bus! Your child needs a rare medical match to save their life. They have limited awareness of the world but experience happiness and could live a fairly long life with the provision of care. Your partner is a match. You can’t be a living donor. If you could get away with it, would you murder your partner so the transplant could take place and save your child’s life? Or would you encourage your partner to commit suicide? What if you were the match? In other words, if you’re happy to be a hero to save your child’s life, is the urge strong enough that you’d also be a villain? Would you go to jail for your child for a very serious crime and pretend you committed their crime, because you think they’d not survive in jail? AIBU to think a parental urge to save and protect at all costs is only truly held by a relatively small number of people?

If you don’t understand the ethics and need to ask, you really need to learn them.

Re the first scenario: what matters of course is not the likelihood of getting away with it, but the sanctity of life. Once we start dividing people into the ones who deserve to survive and the ones who don't, we have made a world that is not safe for anyone.

'Cost' is an interesting word within the context of parental self-sacrifice. I think most parents pay that price on a daily basis, denying their own choices and need for rest and peace for the well-being of their offspring. It's a slow and ongoing penance, just as meaningful as some big hypothetical act of crime - slowly giving away some of your own potential to have fun to help your child to learn about life and to be able to give up things to help other people too.

I hate this dramatic shit. Women lose their children every day and go on to have meaningful lives.

It's not dramatic shit. Some people could just easily live without their partner in their lives. I could, and if it it boiled down to dp or my kids, and I had to end dps life to save my child, I could do it. Some people couldn't live without partner which I find strange and a bit dramatic.

If I’m honest I would expect my husband to sacrifice himself for our child, just like I would- and if the case was true I do believe he would.

If he didn’t I wouldn’t be able to murder him, I just couldn’t do something like that- I’m not built that way.

No, I would never murder anyone.
Having a sick child does not mean your morality flies out the window.

@corythatwas

Re the first scenario: what matters of course is not the likelihood of getting away with it, but the sanctity of life. Once we start dividing people into the ones who deserve to survive and the ones who don't, we have made a world that is not safe for anyone.

This is a horrible, sick scenario. The thought that families are everything and that you protect your own is abhorrent. I want to live in a society where we care about the common good, and don’t kill ‘to save our own’. That path is very dark.

I remember a lecture & seminar on ethics about number of people versus lower number or individual
it was a no win (but I did argue there might be more alternatives than the 2 presented!)

* AIBU to think a parental urge to save and protect at all costs is only truly held by a relatively small number of people?*

Well I sure as heck fall in that “relatively small number of people” group

Dunno. Surely this must have been a plot on Greys Anatomy? If not, it will be!

I think there is quite a big difference between "your child and your husband are both unconscious in a burning building who do you save?"(answer, very easily for me is child) to "your child needs a heart transplant would you kill your husband to get it?" (no I wouldn't).

I wouldn't commit murder to save my child, unless my child's life was directly in danger from the person I am murdering.

I would however commit suicide to save my child's life in the scenario you describe, and my husband probably would to.

I think these posturing statements about killing/suicide to save a child are in horrifically bad taste. I know exactly what I think of people who spout this nonsense and loving parent isn’t it.

No, but if I had to leave my DH or have my DCs taken away, that's the more realistic scenario.

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't even encourage my DH to donate if it meant him dying and my child was about to find a cure for COVID.