Early favorites for “Parents of the Year”!
Darien Urban, 21, and Shalene Ehlers, 20, decided to sell their baby to a stranger while they were at a camp ground. (No, they weren’t married: why would you even ask?) As Mom explained later, having to deal with a baby while taking care of three dogs was just too much. All they asked for was a six-pack of beer and a thousand bucks. What a deal!
“I, Darien Urban and Shalene Ehlers, are signing our rights over to [Cody Martin] of our baby for $1,000 on 9/21/24,” their contract read. Good: these things should be legal. “After signing this there will be no changing y’all two’s minds and to never contact again,” it concluded.
A Hide Away Campground manager contacted the Benton County (Arkansas) Sheriff’s Office on September 21 to report that Urban and Ehlers were trying to sell their baby boy to another camper. Police responded, and emergency medical services transported the infant, who showed signs of neglect, to a hospital for evaluation. Police arrested Urban and Ehlers before the deal was finalized and before any money had been exchanged. I don’t know about the beer.
Both parents face felony charges for endangering the welfare of a minor and attempting to negotiate “the relinquishment of a minor for adoption.” Urban is out of jail on a $5,000 bond, but Ehlers remains in custody. Surprisingly, both have criminal records. The Arkansas Department of Human Service has custody of the child.
Last year, Urban asked for funds on GoFundMe, writing,
Hey y’all, my name is Darien, my fiances name is Shalene, and my daughters name is Rosa. My daughter Rosa was born on may 20th of 2023 and I’m super happy to be a dad but I keep getting beat down everytime I think life starts turning around. I’m trying to make this fundraiser because We live out of a motel right now and it’s taking all of my money from my paychecks from work. I work for Uber eats. Any funds we gain from this will be used to get a better roof over my family. To anyone who helps thank you so much for your help and helping me give my daughter and my fiance the best roof over her head as possible. I’m not expecting to get a lot but I believe humanity is still caring.
He got $150 bucks from some sap.. What are the odds that it was spent on something other than the baby?
Humanity is caring, but these idiots had a child before creating a stable relationship or having sufficient resources to take care of themselves, never mind to raise another human being. Then there were the three dogs…
Ethics Alarms 
Why do we need a special law about negotiating to give a child up for an adoption for this? I struggle to see a difference between this and attempted slave-trading or human-trafficking; can someone else in the commentariat make a convincing case for a difference?
Also, why wasn’t the other party to the transaction also arrested?
Because the deal wasn’t finished. Apparently bartering for a baby with two idiots isn’t a crime.
So many states have “safe harbor” laws, allowing parents with a newborn they’re unable to care for to surrender the child at a hospital, fire department or police station. If three dogs were that much more important to this couple than their baby, they should have surrendered custody of the child long before this. And they certainly ought not attempt to conceive any more children, either!
You are expecting morally bankrupt, irresponsible people to do the responsible thing…
Not gonna happen.
Many jurisdictions with those safe-harbor provisions still find babies in dumpsters. Some people just never get it together enough to function in society. The flood of homeless persons — or is it “unhoused” now? — swamping our cities is another example.
No, the attempted sale does not justify an abortion. Maybe its moral luck, but the attempt brought this to the attention of authorities and the child is better off, and hopefully will end up with people who will provide a good home and be good examples of what we wish all people were.
All states now do.
Know because my state had 48 other examples to follow and decided to ignore them all and not define an age to the term “child”.
They held an emergency legislative season weeks later to “fix” the law after multiple families dropped off teenagers.
I have to know, which state? Is it Florida?
Hmmm . . . I wonder if I can drop off a 20 year old . . .
jvb
The argument I would offer isn’t a great one… but it’s the best I’ve got:
“Your Honor, I beseech you to take a good look at the parents, and recognize the logic of the truism that “Apples don’t fall far from the tree.” Clearly, this baby will be too stupid to survive anyway.”
I accept your challenge. I know you don’t agree with this assessment of the situation, but I would argue that an abortion before a certain point would prevent (not end) the existence of a person, an entity that can have desires and experiences such as pain. I think we’re agreed that preventing the existence of a person who has never existed in the first place is not unethical. We disagree on whether or not that is possible after conception occurs. Does that sound about right?
Since the baby exists now, I would not support an action to somehow retroactively prevent her existence. Erasing someone from a timeline is still murder, even if nobody notices the difference. However, if an identical couple were to conceive in the future, I would support preventing the creation of a new person who would likely be neglected or harmed by that couple. How does that sound?
John Rawls’ famous ethics decision-making formula holds that one should make the decision “blind” as to whether you are the actor (the mother) or the acted upon. Would someone rather have a chance at life rather than no chance, even if the odds against it being happy or even endurable are daunting? (I would.)
If you’re asking me to decide between existence and nonexistence, that implies I already exist, or I couldn’t make the decision. I’m not going to decide to stop existing. I’d just put all my effort into changing what I don’t like. Worst-case scenario, I accomplish nothing and eventually stop existing anyway.
Before I exist, though, there isn’t a person to consult about their own existence, nor to owe existence to. There is no will to live, no mind to feel indignation at the prospect of being killed. You can’t extinguish a flame that was never lit. You might decide the world is better for having a person like me to enjoy it, but you’re not ethically required to.
I’m optimized for a more hospitable world than this one, and as such I’ve experienced a non-negligible amount of pain and suffering, much of which I might have prevented had anyone shown me how to do better. With or without the Veil of Ignorance, I would not deliberately design a world where I exist as I am and have been, if I had the option to design a world where someone better would exist instead.
That’s not me being down on myself; all humans who have ever existed deserve a better world, one based on the four constructive principles of investment, preparation, challenge, and ethics. Or at least they deserve to deserve such a world.
Part of what that world looks like entails focusing more on the people who are already here. I can’t be certain, but I suspect that the new people who are deliberately created by those who are prepared to care for them will be happier than the people who might have been created on accident by those unprepared to care for them.
I would not prohibit abortion from behind Rawls’s Veil of Ignorance just because I might never have existed otherwise. It’s no more or less meaningful to consider whether I in my current state would exist in such a world that it is to assume that if “I” had been born two hundred years ago, “I” would still appear as a male human of pallor. You could find someone who qualifies as a version of me based on a subset of my defining character traits and mindsets, but the part of me that has resulted from my experiences in this bundle of universes would not be there, nor would I demand for someone in a universe of my design to have had all of those same experiences.
That’s part of the point of the Veil of Ignorance: I’m not going to design a world that’s worse for people than it could be just because it would have this version of me in it.
Does that all make sense?
“If you’re asking me to decide between existence and nonexistence, that implies I already exist, or I couldn’t make the decision.”
Nice try: lawyerly of you. No, imagine you’re one of those baby angels in “The Bluebird,” in heaven waiting to be born. And the Big Guy says, OK, kid, you have a tough choice to make. Your parents are poor, abusive, morons, and like is likely to be nasty, brutish and short. Or you can never be born at all: they’re considering killing you in the womb. What do you want me to have them do?”
I guess the rest of my answer–where I actually engaged with the question using the Veil of Ignorance in the fullest scope I could think of–doesn’t mean anything, then.
Alright, if we go by your fantasy scenario, I’d say I wouldn’t bother being born. Nobody would be better off for it. Why would I want to be another link in the chain of abuse?
“I’m not that desperate for a mortal existence. I’ve heard about what those are like. It doesn’t hurt me not to be born. I have no needs here. Do they expect me to be grateful for this opportunity they put zero effort into? If they’re not going to set me up with something decent, I’m not playing this game. Let them find some other sucker.”
But again, this is a fantasy scenario, even by hypothetical philosophical thought experiment standards. Nobody gets the choice of whether or not to exist. By the time they can choose, they already exist. The closest we can come is using the Veil of Ignorance, which you alluded to earlier, to think about how to create a world where the people who do end up existing very much feel like celebrating their existence.
Now please read the rest of my previous comment.
You’re dancing around the issue. Its in line with your dubious claim that if a fetus isn’t self aware, it isn’t a human life. But it is, by definition, both alive and human, and being alive is per se preferable to being dead, and never having the chance, however slight, of being alive, experiencing life, and seeing how things turn out. A .000000001 chance of being happy and having some life experience worthy living for is still better than no chance at all. The fact that “nobody gets a chance to exist” is, again, ducking Rawls. Nobody gets a chance in reality to weigh in on every decision that affects their lives, either. It doesn’t deal with the problem. Your formula ends up with aborting Down Syndrome kids and Cristy Brown before they’re born. No?
Exactly one of us is taking the time to fully address all points raised. It’s me.
I’m dancing around nothing. I provided a complete answer to your question about Rawls’s Veil of Ignorance; it just wasn’t one you wanted, and you seem to be ignoring that point.
I’m not claiming that a fetus isn’t alive, or that it isn’t human. I just don’t think people should be using those criteria to decide whether something has ethical significance. It’s the mind that counts, not the human body that it inhabits. If a baby is born without a brain, what do we do? If a human mind is uploaded to a computer, what rights does it have?
You talk about “the slightest chance of a person experiencing life”, but that glosses over what point that chance becomes something we’re obligated to take. Arguably, the “.000000001 chance” already exists before conception, but we don’t mourn the people who could have been born if a couple hadn’t broken up. We’re agreed on that. Potential parents have the right not to take the chance, up until the person associated with that chance comes into existence. I just posit that a person doesn’t come into existence immediately after conception.
“Your formula ends up with aborting Down Syndrome kids and Cristy Brown before they’re born. No?”
Insofar as we can predict a potentially debilitating condition in a living human organism before that organism develops a person within it, yes. Yes, we’d create a world in which bodies with certain limitations would be destroyed before people came into existence within them. With respect to the effects on the population of people with congenital diseases, I don’t see how this is different from a person with a heritable disease refraining from having children. That’s “denying people the slightest chance to experience life” just as much, is it not?
I get the impression that you feel that my position somehow invalidates the perseverance of past and present people with various types of disability. Without being certain if you feel this way, I would like to respond to the sentiment. I would assert that if the invention of cataract surgery does not indicate contempt for the challenges of the blind, and the invention of antibiotics does not mock the tragedies of those who died of bacterial infections, then there is no reason we can’t add more items to the list of conditions about which we say, “We respect the people who have had to work with these narrow limitations, and we do not want to subject any more people to them in the future.”
(Some deaf communities have a fascinating dissenting perspective on the addition of absent senses because of the culture(s) they have developed. I’m still working out how I feel about the subject.)
I’m being as thorough as I can here. Just because my answers to your questions lead to conclusions that you have already labeled as unethical, that doesn’t mean I’m not answering those questions. My paradigm is, as far as I can tell, internally consistent and consistent with observable evidence. I assume your goal is to demonstrate that I’m wrong about either of those points. If I am wrong, I’d like to know it so that I can reevaluate my position.
Exactly one of us is taking the time to fully address all points raised. It’s me.
No, because the points that follow the bizarre refusal to accept that in the life or no life choice from the point of view of the owner of the life, only one choice is ethical.
I’m not claiming that a fetus isn’t alive, or that it isn’t human. I just don’t think people should be using those criteria to decide whether something has ethical significance. It’s the mind that counts, not the human body that it inhabits.
A developed fetus is exactly as capable of thought as a newborn. Your distinction is contrived.
If a baby is born without a brain, what do we do? If a human mind is uploaded to a computer, what rights does it have?
Straw man arguments both. A baby without a brain isn’t alive. A human mind uplodede to a machine is a science fiction trope, and a separate ethics conflict.
You talk about “the slightest chance of a person experiencing life”, but that glosses over what point that chance becomes something we’re obligated to take. There are ethical trade-offs in such situations. Not in the situation under discussion: ‘how bad that possible life will be.” Any chance at all wins, from the point of view of the life at risk—whether that life momentarily has the ability to ponder the choice or not. We use adult delegates to make such choices, and they are obligated to lean in the direction of their ward.
Arguably, the “.000000001 chance” already exists before conception, but we don’t mourn the people who could have been born if a couple hadn’t broken up. Another straw man. There is no identifiable individual whose life is at issue. It’s not arguable. Potential parents have the right not to take the chance, up until the person associated with that chance comes into existence. I just posit that a person doesn’t come into existence immediately after conception. And I posit that this ducks the problem. It’s a life, its human, and if you don’t snuff it out, it will be born and start along the path of life.
“Your formula ends up with aborting Down Syndrome kids and Cristy Brown before they’re born. No?”
Insofar as we can predict a potentially debilitating condition in a living human organism before that organism develops a person within it, yes. What’s debilitating? Lesser species are “debilitated” by human standards…a human who is less than optimum is still human, still has a human right to try to deal with his or her disability.
Yes, we’d create a world in which bodies with certain limitations would be destroyed before people came into existence within them. 1) An unethical world that doesn’t value life and 2) a Down Syndrome fetus has come into existance.
With respect to the effects on the population of people with congenital diseases, I don’t see how this is different from a person with a heritable disease refraining from having children. What? Of course it’s different: no life is ended in one case. That’s the identical argument that was raised in Hitler’s “Final Solution” meeting.
That’s “denying people the slightest chance to experience life” just as much, is it not? No! There is no “person.”
I get the impression that you feel that my position somehow invalidates the perseverance of past and present people with various types of disability. Without being certain if you feel this way, I would like to respond to the sentiment. I would assert that if the invention of cataract surgery does not indicate contempt for the challenges of the blind, and the invention of antibiotics does not mock the tragedies of those who died of bacterial infections, then there is no reason we can’t add more items to the list of conditions about which we say, “We respect the people who have had to work with these narrow limitations, and we do not want to subject any more people to them in the future.”
A perfect example of the unethical results of a slippery slope argument.
(Some deaf communities have a fascinating dissenting perspective on the addition of absent senses because of the culture(s) they have developed. I’m still working out how I feel about the subject.)
Not fascinating. Insular and foolish. Deaf chic.
If it were possible, the best overall solution might be to move the abortion decision(s) back a generation for this pair.
Shame on you. And I came thiiiis close to writing the same thing…
No, it’s not more ethical to abort. It’s not more ethical to burn the merchandise rather than let it be looted. It’s not more ethical to euthanize the dog rather than risk someone mistreating it.
The pro-abortionists may use the potential abuse and neglect of children as a valid reason for abortion. I’ll bet they’d be the first to decry the Biblical principle of the “sins of the fathers” being passed to the children, yet that’s what they’re arguing (incidentally, that passage is oft misunderstood and refers to the real-world scenario that children often do suffer the consequences of their parents’ wrongdoing which is one reason to avoid wrongdoing in the first place).
absolutely it is unethical to aort the child, However, i would ponder the ethical plus to sterilize these two after they serve the time requried by the law.
“A .000000001 chance of being happy and having some life experience worthy living for is still better than no chance at all. “
Yeah, that. I marvel, every day, that those ^^^ were the odds of my being born at all. And yet I was. And here I am. And in this day and age, and in the greatest country on earth.
I was born to an unwed, 16 year old bi-polar schizophrenic mom whose parents slammed the door on any possibility of her keeping me. My birthfather’s parents did the same on his options. And yet, here I am.
I’ve lived a wonderful 61 years so far; not without pain or trouble. But I get to be here. And I look at my children, and now my grandchildren and wonder what they will do, and build, and solve, and love, and nurture, and what domino effect they will have on every person they come into contact over the course of their lives. It is inconceivable to me to think that I would have been better off not existing at all because I had shitty birthparents, and shitty birth-grandparents – or if the abortion decision hd been moved back a generation
Desperation and the desire for a thousand dollars and a six pack is the best thing that could have happened for that baby. And I wish that child a beautiful life. They had a .000000001 chance of being here, after all.