The Parable of Ken and the Pig

I like working in parables. It makes me sound like Jesus, only less wrong about everything, and it's much more fun than the dryness of conventional argument. Of course, you can't base a rigorous logical statement on a parable, but for getting your point across it's fantastic. Apologies for my lack of writing talent; when I write my big Magnum Opus (I actually have several great book plots written down, but my miserable writing means I can't make them into any sort of actual work) I'll try harder.

The Parable of Ken and the Pig:

In the city of New York, once, there lived a happy family - John, the father, Mary, the mother, and Ken, their teenaged son. They lived, they ate, they drank, they were merry. Then one sad day, Ken was hit by a bus - immediately the family rushed him to the hospital where they learned that, though he would survive, Ken would be a vegetable for the rest of his life. They had tested his brain's response to outside stimuli and ran a diagnostic on the extent of the damage, and the sad but very clear conclusion was that Ken was incapable of thought on a human or even on an animal level. He could breathe, but he couldn't eat food, talk, make any but the slightest movements, or even remember anything of his past life (as the tests clearly showed massive damage to those parts of his brain). The family kept him, using their government health insurance, in a bed at the hospital, receiving intravenous nutrients. Total cost to the government per year: $10,000.

Outside of the city lived a man named Gary, who had a pet pig he loved very much. One day, shortly after Ken's misadventure, Gary's pig wandered into the road and was struck by a speeding car. Gary rushed his pig to the same hospital, where they ran a few tests that showed that Gary's pig was, like Ken, a vegetable. Gary wished to use his health insurance to keep his beloved pig in the hospital on an IV drip. Total cost of his request: $10,000/year.

The hospital refused, and Gary's pig passed away.

Most people would consider the hospital's response to Ken's case (i.e. keeping him alive on an IV drip) the correct one, or at least a reasonable one. I highly doubt many people would advise the hospital to do the same for Gary's pig. However, Ken and Gary's pig are in identical mental conditions, i.e. they really don't have any. Furthermore, as the pig was Gary's only company, he loved that pig as much as Ken's parents loved Ken, so one cannot say that Ken had been more loved when he was alive by way of explanation. So why do people have differing opinions of what to do with Ken and Gary's pig? I attribute it to a bias towards one's own species, or at least towards one's own intelligence level (I wonder what people would say if I used a sentient alien in place of Gary's pig?).

My point here is that people often hold opinions without very good reasons to back them up. I used to be like most people in this case; now I consider the hospital very much in the wrong for using perfectly good money (i.e. material wealth) that could be used to better the lives of those who are still actually alive to essentially keep a plant alive in their building. Since Ken is already for all intents and purposes dead and gone, let the empty shell that used to be his body expire with him, and spend the $10k a year on patients who have a hope of getting better. When people use subjectivity and emotions to make life-or-death decisions, the results are increased suffering. Perhaps cold, hard, emotionless logic doesn't sound good as a way to determine lives, but the end result is greater happiness and decreased suffering. Sounds good enough to make up for the loss of poetic Hollywood "heart is what counts" crap to me.