Thursday, November 7, 2013

An impossible question

How far would you go to protect your loved ones? An impossible question...


The world is at war and the United States has been invaded. Thousands of enemy soldiers have neared your hometown and you've heard many stories of these soldiers raping women and torturing and/or killing everyone.
Yourself, your spouse, your children and about 30 of your neighbors have taken shelter in the basement of a nearby home just as you all hear several trucks arrive on the street outside. Dozens of soldiers armed with assault rifles begin searching all of the homes on that block, looking for anyone they can find. Most of the 30 or so people with you are unarmed so fighting the soldiers would only end in a massacre...but the trapdoor to your basement hideaway has been expertly crafted and well hidden so as long as everyone in your group remains totally quiet, you will not be found. At that moment a baby in your group begins to cry. The baby is approx 6 months old and the parents cannot be found as one of the men in your group found the baby abandoned in a car just before the soldiers arrived. Efforts to silence the child only agitate it further and the baby begins to scream.
At that moment you are all faced with a dilemma and you must decide quickly. If the soldiers hear the childs' screams they will likely kill, rape or torture everyone in the basement and you have only seconds to decide...could you be the one to walk over to the screaming child, place your hand over it's mouth & nose and smother it to save yourself, your family and the other 30 or so people in your group?
The results? When I first wrote this about a month ago, I used Facebook to ask this question to 25 mothers and 25 fathers (not the same couples) and you may or may not be surprised by the answers.
Only 3 of the fathers stated that they could indeed suffocate the baby; the other 22 dads said that they would be unable to do it and thus allow the rape and or murder of themselves and their families.
Only 1 of the mothers that I asked stated that she would be incapable of suffocating the baby. Most of the other 24 moms stated that they wouldn't hesitate; if it was their child versus another, then although it would be a terribly horrible thing, they would do it in a "heartbeat" to protect their babies. I quote one mom as saying "Fuck'm, nobody's hurting my children."
I recently joined the prepper movement and constructed this moral dilemma out of sheer curiosity. Men have always been vaulted as being protectors of the family but now I have my doubts.


How far would you go?

No comments:

Post a Comment