"Is every infant whose mother dies in childbirth to be regarded as a murderer, by your reasoning? Consider, for a moment, a newborn infant's frailty, lack of a concept of right and wrong--lack even of a concept of its ability to affect its environment, or the lives of those around it. If such a child can be held responsible for murder, then should not everyone who causes a death, even unwillingly, unwittingly, and indirectly, be at least as condemned? Indeed, if an event over which you had as little control as your own birth is to be held against you, we had best condemn all recipients of organs--after all, there surely is someone farther down the list, and by receiving a transplant before someone else, each of those recipients may well cause the death of the one who goes without. Shall we say that seeking an organ transplant is tantamount to attempted murder, then, and deny all such requests--but then in causing the deaths of those denied their transplants, I suppose everyone throughout society becomes complicit."
He crossed his arms. He spoke even and coolly, but with a degree of tension in his voice.
"If that sounds preposterous to you, as I can only pray that it does, then I hope you begin to see the utter impossibility of what you seem to suggest. To the contrary. I would suggest, if you would pardon my overstepping once again, that the only evil I have heard in this tragic story is the evil that whispered continually to a child that he was to blame for the mournful complications accompanying his birth."
no subject
Alric stared at Tiamaris for a long few seconds.
"Is every infant whose mother dies in childbirth to be regarded as a murderer, by your reasoning? Consider, for a moment, a newborn infant's frailty, lack of a concept of right and wrong--lack even of a concept of its ability to affect its environment, or the lives of those around it. If such a child can be held responsible for murder, then should not everyone who causes a death, even unwillingly, unwittingly, and indirectly, be at least as condemned? Indeed, if an event over which you had as little control as your own birth is to be held against you, we had best condemn all recipients of organs--after all, there surely is someone farther down the list, and by receiving a transplant before someone else, each of those recipients may well cause the death of the one who goes without. Shall we say that seeking an organ transplant is tantamount to attempted murder, then, and deny all such requests--but then in causing the deaths of those denied their transplants, I suppose everyone throughout society becomes complicit."
He crossed his arms. He spoke even and coolly, but with a degree of tension in his voice.
"If that sounds preposterous to you, as I can only pray that it does, then I hope you begin to see the utter impossibility of what you seem to suggest. To the contrary. I would suggest, if you would pardon my overstepping once again, that the only evil I have heard in this tragic story is the evil that whispered continually to a child that he was to blame for the mournful complications accompanying his birth."