"just" refers to easiness of the alternative route, nothing more. i didn't mean it should be an easy decision.(I am not a native English speaker.) I realize that this is a very painful situation for the family.

regarding your question, there are two different scenarios:

1- my son reaches the necessary neural development stage so that he is conscious, self-aware, interacts with other humans etc. then we can't kill him unless he requests it.

2- he has never reached that stage so he has not any personality, memory etc. then we can kill him. because there is not really a "son" here, not yet.

in fact, we humans continously kill pigs, dolphins and other animals that are more intelligent and conscious than a newborn.

I believe luminaobscura is referring to the following position: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_natur...