I saw this question posed on a television show about moral and ethical questions that are not easy to define as "evil" or "good" and how our brains cope with making such decisions. Here is a scenario that was presented on the show and I am just curious to see how people answer it. There are no right or wrong answers, but feel free to discuss why you believe you would do what you have chosen.

Scenario

A civil war breaks out in your country. People are being killed left and right and you and your people are being targeted. One night, the enemy storms your town and begins their massacre. Everyone is being killed, no prisoners are being taken. You find yourself hidden in a secret room with a handful of your neighbors, some you know and some you don't. All that is left of your immediate family is yourself and your newborn child.

As you hold your child in your arms, everyone remaining silent and scared, your child begins to cry. It's wailing is sure to give you away and if it is not stopped then you, your child, and all of your neighbors hidden in the room will be killed. If you all remain silent then there is a very good chance that you will survive this attack and be able to escape to safety when it is over.

You put your hand over your newborn's mouth and nose to quiet it....

What do you do?

1. Smother your child to save everyone in the room.

2. Do not smother your child.

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A difficult dilemma indeed. After some soul searching, I decided I just couldn't smother my child. I would love my child with every part of my being and if he/she dies I wouldn't want to go on living. I'd do my best to get the baby to be quiet (binky or something). However in all honesty compared to the life of my child, my life, and definatly the other people's in there are small change.

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"Oh people, know that you have committed great sins. If you ask me what proof I have for these words, I say it is because I am the punishment of God. If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you!" -- Genghis Khan, Bukhara 1220

i would put my mouth over the babys mouth and suck gently, this will interupt its crying and force it to take a breath in and when it lets air out i will repeat the same thing,...... man thats a hard situation

Interesting. ^_^
I have never seen this in action so I honestly can not comment on how much noise that would make; i.e. the baby trying to breathe.
And as to whether or not you would be able to do this over the course of a few hours.. I don't know. Though I suppose people can do anything when they put their minds to it.
For the sake of argument (because otherwise it might ruin my experiment) let's say that makes too much noise and/or is not something that one can sustain over a long period of time.

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Compulsion to commit an act has to be weighed against the probability of its potential success. Can I be certain the sacrifice will reap the reward intended? If there is any doubt, the odds will be reduced to 50/50 in which case I would be grasping at straws in my attempt. This is not sufficient justification for taking a life.

hey did you took this from that movie the pianist? i think it happens at one point in the movie.

i would smother the child if i was sure that the alternative is some death camp. selfish act, not 'justified' in any way, but its war.

The key phrase is "...if I was sure".

indeed, that is what the decision is based on.

I dont think I could smolder my own child. Its also what I suppose will be most likely to happen in such a situation. Simply because its never sure that you will be found and everyone gets killed and as long as there is hope...

I would not be surprised if such situations happened in my own country 70 years ago. I dont think they killed the children.

Having that said, it might be the rationally "wrong" decision.

ok how bout this..
then i would put the baby outside the door of the secret room that way while its crying the army guys can either kill it or let it live if they shoot it then its on them and if they take it with them then thank God and if i survive after the war i will try to find my child if possible.