# Ask the Girl in the Wheelchair **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 19, 2012, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-girl-in-the-wheelchair/622436 "2012-05-19T16:21:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 873
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2012, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-girl-in-the-wheelchair/622436/873 "2012-06-17T19:02:21Z")
> [@Mars: To terraform or not to terraform?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mars-to-terraform-or-not-to-terraform/76616/6): > > As an afterthought: Have you ever thought about how you might feel if you had walked away unscathed, but had paralyzed someone else that night? Do you think they might feel it was fair for you to go to prison for the rest of your life? After all, the disability you caused them was a lifetime thing–why shouldn’t your punishment be, too? While I can’t say I know how I would feel if _someone else_ were responsible for causing my accident, I can say that I don’t hold onto any feelings of loss, bitterness or remorse from it. My disability is now my life, my existence, a central part of who I am. I don’t curse it. If someone else was responsible for bringing this part of me into the world, without intent or malice, I would hold no long-term anger towards them. Yes, they should face _appropriate_ legal punishment but such punishment would absolutely fall short of life imprisonment. That would be throwing the life away of the person who made a mistake in judgment that one time. My life isn’t over, why should their’s be? Now to flip this around on _me_, if I was the one responsible for paralyzing someone in an accident, I would probably _feel_ like spending the rest of my life in prison; if not dying. While I could empathize with the _temptation_ to lock up ‘the bastard who did this’ (me) for all eternity, in all reality I would have to admit that that wasn’t the fair punishment. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-girl-in-the-wheelchair/622436)._