Helen Pretty, who runs an education business from the $900,000 home in Wilmslow, Cheshire

I like it when a story makes complete sense at the very end

Wait...WTF?? Since when doesn't your brother count as family? As bio4ema said, I'd like to know why she changed her mind & now no longer wants to donate.

This story is sad, but she's just pathetic.

Jesus, that women is going to get lynched from that article.


I never met my father. It was just a fling between two people who weren't really in a relationship, and he never got involved. I don't have any hatred towards him or anything; these things happen. His family also didn't want anything to do with me or my mother; it was an embarassment on them for their son to have a kid out of wedlock. Anyway, the story goes that when I was around six years old, my father's brother needed a bone marrow transplant and I was a likely match, so they came to my mother to get me to donate. She refused. As it was, bone marrow donation was very painful and confusing for a kid.

I never did find out what happened, and didn't hear about the situation until much later.

The point is, there is often much more to it than simply "I hope you die." Sometimes things are complicated.

I really don't know what to think about this article.

Eh... I'm torn.

On the one hand, this is as petty and childish as refusing to share your Crayons with a sibling, but with much higher stakes. It's astonishingly cruel, and the woman deserves all the scorn she receives for this.

On the other hand, I don't want to see her socially coerced into this if she doesn't want to do it. It would be better for everyone if marrow donation interest rises substantially because of the publicity and he gets the treatment he needs from someone willing.

I'm betting they have rich parents.

gund: I think if you were somehow found to be a perfect match and you mother refused, everybody would have the same feeling about your mother as this lady in the article.

Sometimes things aren't complicated. He's going to die, you can save a life with minimal risk. All that "I hope you die" bullshiat is just that, bullshiat.

Think what you like. Shall I e-mail you her cell phone number so that you may lecture her on the ethics of bone marrow donation based on what you learned from a paragraph-long anectdote? What if I told you that this man was a heroin addict that was no longer capable of caring for anyone? Would that change your opinion? What does the man have to do before you no longer care whether he lives or dies?

It's easy to be self-righteous when you don't know the entire story.

I'm not trying to flame you I'm just saying there exists a grey area of morality you can't appreciate or judge until you've lived it.

This is like Locke on Lost (yeah I watched it until the end of the first season when I realised to my horror that the writers don't actually know where they're going with it) meets that episode of the Simpsons with Homer and Grandpa, where Homer keeps chickening out.

Either way, I do agree with the posters above who say there may be a whole story we don't know about - I mean, I would do anything to save any member of my family, but we aren't a Springer Bunch (if you know what I mean).

log_jammin: Helen Pretty, who runs an education business from the $900,000 home in Wilmslow, Cheshire

I like it when a story makes complete sense at the very end

That's how they address things in England. They don't have street numbers or anything. My address would be the $500 apartment in Chicago. That's why it costs so much to mail stuff there, all the mailmen are home appraisers and they have to go door to door until they find one. It's tedious, but they love tradition over there.

El Dan I think it's extremely irresponsible of this newspaper to publish this article without knowing and disclosing the details of why she is refusing. Maybe he spent the past decade in jail for molesting her children, for all we know.

Highly unlikely. That sort of information would be known to lots of others - neighbors, other family, etc. The report does say she refused to comment, so they did give her a chance to state her case. She's probably just a coont.

staplermofo: My address would be the $500 apartment in Chicago.

writing speeding tickets would be a biatch.

"The $15,000 nissan was driven by Mr Smith who lives at $175,000 Springfield Missouri"

This story is making me nuts. I can envision reasons that she wouldn't donate, but can't imagine being her and NOT doing it, and my family is pretty dysfunctional, and I hate physical pain to the point of ridiculousness (I freak out about routine vaccinations and sobbed for ten minutes when I had to have a skin biopsy). As far as I'm concerned, she shouldn't have to come forth with her reason, but I hope it's a damned good one.

/and I'm drinking and can't grammar, damn clauses