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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   27518 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 6, 2023

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Suppose you have a 13 year old child dying of a terminal illness, and their final wish is to lose their virginity before they die. Is it ethical for the Make A Wish Foundation to hire them a prostitute?

This is not completely fantastical scenario.

Original source is long gone, but here is the second best, Free Republic mirror and lively discussion thread and other thread

Dying boy, 15, gets wish: losing virginity Chicago Sun Times ^ | 12/23/01 | BY BENJAMIN ERRETT

Posted on 12/23/2001, 3:26:24 PM by Mopp4

A terminally ill boy had his dying wish granted in Australia this month, but ethicists are still at odds over whether it was the right thing to do. The wish was not for a trip to Disneyland or to meet a famous sports star. Instead, the 15-year-old wanted to lose his virginity before he died of cancer. The boy, who remains anonymous but was called Jack by the Australian media, did not want his parents to know about his request. Because of his many years spent in the hospital, he had no girlfriend or female friends. Jack died last week, but not before having his last wish granted. Without the knowledge of his parents or hospital staff, friends arranged an encounter with a prostitute outside of hospital premises. All precautions were taken, and the organizers made sure the act was fully consensual. The issue has sparked fierce debate over the legal and ethical implications of granting the boy's request. By law, Jack was still a child, and the woman involved could in theory face charges for having sex with a minor. The debate was sparked by the hospital's child psychologist, who wrote a letter to "Life Matters," a radio show in which academics debate ethical and moral dilemmas. The scenario was presented in the abstract, with no details about the boy's identity.

No surprise, boomer cons in 2001 reacted as expected.

My inital reaction to this article was shock. This boy is dying at age 15 and the most important thing in the world to him is to get laid before he passes on. He didn't even want his parents to know about it. Is this reflective of the way young people view life today? I don't care that I will be missing out on the chance to lead a full life, just let me have sex before I go?

This is the sort of soul-less, animalistic response to impending death that might be expected from a human child raised by beasts.

Interesting: His eternal life is immediately before him. And this "child of the media" wants 30 seconds of immediate sexual gratification rather than an eternity of life.

What can be seen as more surprising, this story was revived in 2014 by Eric Raymond on his blog and reaction of libertarian both left and right tended to be positive and affirming.

I’d go so far as to say that the most important experience this hooker gave the kid probably wasn’t the orgasm itself but her natural human compassion for a dying child, her willingness to touch him and comfort him and give him what he had wished for.

Something not thinkable today.

it seemed pretty gross to me.

Me too, but the whole fucking thing is gross as shit. Cancer, terminal illness, dying wishes: fundamentally obscene. It is not for nothing that Wilfred Owen's poem Dulce et Decorum Est included references to cancer as being obscene. He was right, as Scott Alexander observed a decade ago.

I don't really have much of a position on that. Having seen some shit working in the healthcare industry, and seen a few children dying from cancer, I am willing to say that this isn't terribly bad, given the child's circumstances. Reasonable people can be on either side of this issue. Cancer is a nasty, nasty disease: this guy is looking down the barrel of Who By Very Slow Decay, pediatric edition. Mercifully that is a bit faster than the geriatric version.

Who By Very Slow Decay

      • yeah.

Thankfully my mother passed before she deteriorated that far, but many years ago I decided that at the first serious downturn in my health, I will euthanize myself in the quickest, most painless way I can (that doesn't leave a mess or inconvenience other people). I will do this with a clear conscience, as I have no children or other dependents and have never had a Significant Other.

I mean...if I'm terminally ill and of sound mind, I'm probably going for euthanasia, either by the DIY method or the cleaner, government-approved one, assuming that medical aid in dying becomes more common and easily accessible in 50 or 60 years. It's either a last walk in the woods with my method of choice - and I'll be a physician, so I'll know damn well what it takes to kill a human being - or a prescription for a lethal dose of poison from another doctor. It's a personal decision, but for me: fuck that shit, let's get it over with in one go and spare me and the people around me the suffering. I could potentially be talked into "comfort care only" by family members that I was close enough to and who I cared about enough...but it better be comfort care only. I don't want to suffer at all, and if they need to pump so much morphine into me that it stops me from breathing so much the better.

What can be seen as more surprising, this story was revived in 2014 by Eric Raymond on his blog and reaction of libertarian both left and right tended to be positive and affirming.

Off topic, but is esr blogging anywhere? I used to read his blog, but haven’t seen anything from him since his website died.

Interesting that that was in Australia. Jim Jeffries, an Australian stand-up comic, has a bit where he did this sort of thing for a friend who had some sort of chronic illness that made him paralyzed and severely fragile. I don't think his friend was expected to die any time soon (though expected to die young), and he was an adult at the time. Being a stand-up comic bit, I have no idea how much truth there is to it; perhaps he was partially inspired by this real-life event in Australia.

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