Decisions that one makes in life will always have its share of dire and pleasant consequences. This ideal thought is explored through Neal Shushterman’s novel, “Unwind” where the law of the Bill of Life results in both positive and negative repercussions. Whilst several believe that the Bill of Life offers many with a second chance at life, others consider it ultimately creates more problems than it solves. To start off, the Bill of Life provides children and adults alike with redemptive opportunities at life. Correspondingly, this compromise benefits the myriad premature parents with the ability to ‘Stork’ their baby. The beneficence of storking is seen when a girl storks her baby and thinks to herself, “ Thank goodness for the Storking Initiative, that wonderful law that allows girls like her a far better alternative…how wonderful it is that she can get a second chance.” (Shushterman 53-55) A parent’s relieve is present as storking allows sophomoric parents a chance to dismiss their responsibilities, as well as, a possibility for a better future for the child. In addition to this, the most significant asset is that the unwinding system allows cures of all sorts of diseases and disabilities; such an instance occurs when Cy-Fi receives a brain transplant. He explains to Lev that, “I was nearly roadkill... But brain damage [is not] a problem like it used to be. They just replace the brain tissue and you’re as good as new.”(126) This system aids people like Cy-Fi to permanently obtain essential body parts to function again thus giving anew chance at life. Lastly, many also admit that the Bill of Life assists young, unwanted individuals in believing that they can serve a greater purpose in life. During Risa’s bus ride to the... ... middle of paper ... ...The Admiral rightfully says, “It didn’t take long for ethics to be crushed by greed.” (224) The compromise leads to marketing the body parts of children, and promoting harvest camps, thus encouraging the population of unwanted kids and questioning ethics. The aftermath of the Bill of Life leads to improper transplants with several defects, harmful methods of storking and destroying the sanctity of life. All in all, the war ending compromise which initially provides citizens with a second chance in life, eventually creates greater obstacles that overpower the benefits of the Bill of Life. The perks of this law are dismissal of parenthood burdens, access to infinite cures and eradication of inept humans. These consequently leads to mishaps due to the law’s loopholes, flawed transplants of body parts and ruining one’s ethics. Works Cited Unwind, Neal Shusterman
Thomson provides the example of being hooked up for nine months to provide dialysis to an ailing violinist to expose how a fetus’s right to life does not supersede a mother’s right to make medical decisions about her body (48-49). I find that this thought experiment especially helpful in understanding how even though a fetus does have a right to life, because the continuation of their life hinges on the consent of their mother to use her body, it falls to the mother to choose whether or not to allow the fetus to develop to term.
Love and heartbreak, they are one in the same. Without one, the other is nonexistent. American Rock Band Poison in their 1980’s Hit, “Every Rose Has Its Thorn”, Lead singer, Bret Michaels fervently reflects on the anguish suffered while being in love and getting your heart broken. Michaels supports his claim on love and romance by utilizing figurative language, anaphora and parallelism with the goal of expressing how love and heartbreak feels.
The science fiction novel Unwind by Neal Shusterman has a central idea, being ‘life’. This novel opens up our ideas to when a human’s life actually begins which is a sensitive topic for most people. This is a concept that everyone has their own opinions on usually based on the way you were raised; however this book opens up these ideas and decisions for you to make. It relates to abortion and the controversy over it. One example of how Shusterman gets us to think about life is when Connor (one of the main characters) is in a crate with three other unwinds. They are discussing life and what happens after you are unwound. In reality we know very little about life so we come up with our own conclusions. This unwinding experience that Connor Lassiter has really changes who he is as a person and his outlook on life.
Williams, J. (2010, Nov. 23). Wrongful life and abortion. Retrieved on January 23, 2012, from http://www.springerlink.com/content/q69145g545q13hg5/
Aiding the death of infants is a much disputed controversy in healthcare. H. Tristram Engelhardt Jr. provides an ethical view that there is a moral duty not to treat an impaired infant when this will only prolong a painful life or would only lead to a painful death. It is these individuals, like Engelhardt, who must defend this position against groups who consider that we have the ability to prolong the lives of impaired infants, thus we are obligated to do so.
By critically examining Thomson’s (1971) three analogies; the Violinist, the Henry Fonda analogy and the People Seeds analogy, all three analogies fail to show that it is not unjust to deny the foetus the right to the mother’s body. Therefore, the foetus has a right to not be killed unjustly and have the use of the mother’s womb.
Over the duration of the last century, abortion in the Western hemisphere has become a largely controversial topic that affects every human being. In the United States, at current rates, one in three women will have had an abortion by the time they reach the age of 45. The questions surrounding the laws are of moral, social, and medical dilemmas that rely upon the most fundamental principles of ethics and philosophy. At the center of the argument is the not so clear cut lines dictating what life is, or is not, and where a fetus finds itself amongst its meaning. In an effort to answer the question, lawmakers are establishing public policies dictating what a woman may or may not do with consideration to her reproductive rights. The drawback, however, is that there is no agreement upon when life begins and at which point one crosses the line from unalienable rights to murder.
As people come to the topic of citizen’s rights, the majority of us will readily agree that rights are very much needed in a society. It has become common in today’s society for the government to try and take away its citizens rights. “The flag is just an indication that the parents will have to make a sacrifice. Sometimes it means the child will be handicapped, and the parents will have to work additionally hours to make up for the burden on the state,” (Haines, 26). The flag is symbolizing family’s ability to take the best path in making their future better. Whether it is having the baby and knowing they will to make a sacrifice, or if it is not having the baby to help society as well as the families case. Therefore the people believe they have rights, even though the government already knows the future because of technology. In this dystopia’s society, a ten with a flag baby is very rare. “Your child is a ten sir, that should be enough to make you forget about the flag,” (Haines, 26). The ten with a flag baby is so significant and rare due to the fact that it is very hard to understand how a baby that is perfect could have a problem like a flag. Also, just having a baby that is rated a ten is ridiculously rare. Having rights in a society is what allows the citizens to have
Once upon a time, I was a student ignorant of the issues plaguing our nation; issues such as abortion and a frightening scarcity of organ donors meant little to me, who was neither pregnant nor in need of replacement body parts. Today, I fortunately remain a simple witness to these scenarios rather than a participant, but I have certainly established a new perspective since reading Neal Shusterman’s Unwind several years ago.
In “Killing, Letting Die, and the Trolley Problem,” Judith Thomson confronts the moral dilemma of how death comes about, whether one meets their demise through natural causes or by the hands of another (Shafer-Landau 544). If one does in fact lose their life through the action or inaction of another person, a second dilemma must also be considered. Does it matter whether a person was killed or simply allowed to die? The moral debate that arises from these issues is important because if forms opinions that ultimately sets the tone for what is socially acceptable behavior. Social issue such as legalization of euthanasia, abortions, and the distribution of medical resources all hinge on the “killing vs letting die problem”.
The permissibility of abortion has been a crucial topic for debates for many years. People have yet to agree upon a stance on whether abortion is morally just. This country is divided into two groups, believers in a woman’s choice to have an abortion and those who stand for the fetus’s right to live. More commonly these stances are labeled as pro-choice and pro-life. The traditional argument for each side is based upon whether a fetus has a right to life. Complications occur because the qualifications of what gives something a right to life is not agreed upon. The pro-choice argument asserts that only people, not fetuses, have a right to life. The pro-life argument claims that fetuses are human beings and therefore they have a right to life. Philosopher, Judith Jarvis Thomson, rejects this traditional reasoning because the right of the mother is not brought into consideration. Thomson prepares two theses to explain her reasoning for being pro-choice; “A right to life does not entail the right to use your body to stay alive” and “In the majority of cases it is not morally required that you carry a fetus to term.”
...This idea respects the adult person in the moral community, not the infant. It can be compared to the idea that it is wrong to destroy someone’s home or natural recourses. (Disputed Moral Issues, p.189).
The parts of the moral dispute on the status of unborn life… solidly bolster the conclusion that this unborn bit of humankind has a benefit not to be killed, in any occasion. Without laying out all the affirmation here, it is sensible to complete up from arrangement that the humanity of the life creating in a mother's womb is sure and, in itself, a serious clarification behind drawing closer the unborn with concession.
“In everyday life, men and women make decisions that affect the life and death of existing people. They decide whether to join the army; whether to donate blood, a kidney, or bone marrow to a child; whether to give money to Save the Children instead of buying a new sweater; whether to decline a life-saving blood transfusion; whether to drive a small fort on walls that may protect passengers in a crash but often kills those in less substantial vehicles” (Borgmann 23).
This is the result of the post-scientific revolution, which at times science commodifies the dignity of a human person. Primarily, because of the shift from people being seen as members of the human species. From people to be seen as products that are to be used to a means to an end. This notion of human dignity falls under the quadrants, 1A and 1B. These two quadrants argue that human dignity is inherent primarily because people are members of the human species (1A). Plus, in the 1B perspective, the savior sibling’s dignity should be upheld as the child is multidimensional. Therefore, regardless of the number of procedures, the savior sibling has to preserve the life of the sick sibling. The child should always be seen as being a member of the human species as they possess human capacities. Thus can be concluded for the fertilized embryos that are compromised during the Therapeutic reproductive technology procedure.