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?

Like @Atadaddicted I would do anything for my children. That does not mean they are spoiled materially but when it comes down to it they are more important than me or anyone else.
The only reason I am not divorced is that on balance it was better for them to have both of us as parents and I did not want them to gave a stepfather or stepmother. )They will never know this unless Iget dementia and blurt it out, so hope if that's the case they'll put it down to the dementia talking.
I also kinda plan that if I am aware I am getting dementia and am still capable of driving, will drive my car into a tree or suchlike so it won't look like suicide, but they will be free of the burden of me.
One of the things I have always remembered is a car crash in Devon or thereabouts, where a guy driving behind his wife's car ( ie taking family in two cars on hols). Her car crashed, and he rushed to his daughter who was killed, and cradling her distraught obviously, talking to her etc, and the emergency services tried to get him to his wife who was still alive, but would die soon, and he wouldn't/couldn't leave his dead daughter 😢

Nah, I would not. You can always make more children, those beastly little demanding snot machines.

Yes.
He is bigger and stronger so if any parent was going to be sacrificed it could be me unless it was a man eating animal in that case DP would have to die has lots more meat on him than me.

Wouldn't you consider the burden your child would then have to live with? That their mum killed their dad so they could get a heart... is that any sort of start to a well adjusted life?

If someone broke into my home, I wouldn't have any guilt in going after them with a bat or hockey stick to keep them away from my kids. If a car is plowing towards us, I would (and did) push my kids out of the way and take the hit myself if there as no time to grab them and all run. I would protect them from whatever I could; even if it meant my injury. I think, if I died, my kids would grow up understanding that one.

I dont think they wont understand murdering someone who wasnt about to hurt them, but simply to secure a transplant. I dont think I would do that.

I would maybe think about trying to bring some kind of court case to be given the right to be a living donor of a heart, but I dont imagine any surgeon would remove the heart of someone still living even if it was to save their child.

*I dont think they would understand

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?

I wouldn't murder dh or ask him to kill himself and I wouldn't kill myself to save one of our dc, the others also need a mother.

I think that's a totally different scenario to "your house is burning down and you can get the dc out or your dh out"- I imagine most parents would focus on their dc in that sort of situation.

We have discussed what happens in a zombie situation anyway and so far it seems the consensus is I get sacrificed so everyone else can run away on the grounds that I am slow and clumsy and would just hold everyone up anyway

I’d do anything for my child and so would DH. When I had my c section I told the surgeon to prioritise the baby, not me. The second the baby popped out, DH let go of my hand and walked away to accompany the baby. That’s just what parents do. One time I remember my own mother running in front of a car and pushing me out of the way.

And it would make a mockery of the justice system which is (on the whole) there to keep us safe.

Unfortunately, as Foucault argued in Discipline and Punish, the justice system exists to protect property - and the more powerful you are in society the more your property will be protected. This is why almost nothing is done to prevent murder where the likely victims are considered to be of low status - ie not belonging to anyone "important".

(Sorry, not the point of the thread ...)

Save my child in a heartbeat everytime. I got asked a hypothetical about an aeroplane and the choice was my child or 5000 strangers. See ya later 5000 strangers was my answer and always would be.

Hmm, I think it's tricky in the scenario you've described. What does 'having a limited awareness of the world' mean? If my son, who is a normal, healthy child, was going to die for want of an organ that I could provide but I might die in providing it, yes I would do it, though I would have to consider how my son would function/cope thereafter if I was dead. I wouldn't murder my husband to provide the organ though, he would have to make his own decision about that.

I would never go to jail for my son. I would shop him if I knew he had committed a serious crime. But I would visit him in jail. He would always be my son.

I think a lot more realistic scenario is in a situation where your relationship with your partner (who may or may not be the childrens father) is putting your children in harms way (physically or mentally) but you are worried your partner wouldnt cope if you left (maybe hes threatening suicide for example). We all like to think we would put our children first in that situation and women who dont are frequently castigated on here, but the very fact that there are frequent posts about this suggests it isnt always an obvious choice when women are in that situation. (And I know from experience leaving is often much more complicated than that so Im not criticising).

Or fathers who "would die for their children" and probably believe they would run into a burning building for their child but they wont pay full maintenance to the childs mother, or give up their sunday morning football practice to take their children swimming.

Or parents in general who love their children but not enough not to pull their children into arguements between them/try to get them to take sides etc etc. These are all much smaller situations than life or death but much more common and somehow much harder to navigate I imagine because they take protracted effort than an instanaeous action.

Such a stupid thread. Why would you come up with something so morbid?

Re saving your child's life with a transplant .....no transplant requires the donor to kill themselves or their partner . It's not done that way ! If a child required a heart transplant just to remain alive, they'd go on the transplant list . I wouldn't kill my partner to provide the organ needed.

I definitely would not do this. I would allow my child to die with dignity and with love.

With all this absolutism with regards parental love, and if we accept it's good, I pity the poor mother or father who has a child by a previous union and a child by a current partnership; an ex and a current lover saying 'I'm demanding the best for my DC because I'm their parent, and that's what I do'. No arguments of treating both children equally in terms of time and help would cut any ice.

Once you morally legitimise putting your child's interests above all else, you get all kinds of inconsideration to other kids in the same class, play group, street, etc., and a society which isn't such a gentle place to live in.

I always find these discussions interesting...what if you have 2children then? Who would you save or push under a bus??

I don’t think murder is as simple as people seem to think 😂😂

No, I wouldn't kill myself or my partner to save my child in the circumstances you describe. All lives are precious but some of us are dealt cards that destine us for a shorter life. I accept that, however painful it may be.

And no, I would not go to jail to save my child but, except for the most heinous crimes, would continue to support him or her in the hope of rehabilitation.

I remember reading what was to me a shocking story where a couple discovered that the father needed a kidney transplant so they jumped in the car and drove to their son’s university to ask him in person to donate a kidney. If I remember rightly the father was in his 60s.

The son agreed and there they all were grinning in the paper.

To me only the lowest of the most selfish low would take a kidney from their young son.

I always find these discussions interesting...what if you have 2 children then? Which one of the children would you save or push under a bus!!??

SlepyBaaa, using the picnic basket might help unless it was smarter than the average bear.

YABU to use the word villain (I've started a campaign).

Wouldn't be surprised for DP to try spousal murder (of me) where necessary (or for comedy value).

Once you morally legitimise putting your child's interests above all else, you get all kinds of inconsideration to other kids in the same class, play group, street, etc., and a society which isn't such a gentle place to live in.

This.

The pp who said they would torture another child to prevent their child being tortured. WTAF?! Why hypothesise about something so disturbing? I can’t imagine any scenario in which the situation would ever be a reality, but it doesn’t prove your love for a child or worth as a parent. It actually just shows a disturbing lack of morals to fulfil your own needs.

@Charleyhorses

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

:o

I'm just finishing season 9 and thought the same thing.

At the end of the day it is easier to make another child than find another good partner.