Would People in Space Colonies Be Really Alive? Part II

My earlier post on the topic is being discussed at Back Off Government! and Stupidus (which sounds like it has to do with Memento Moron). According to Stupidus:

I guess another way to put it would be to ask if those people have any right to life... If the company operating the space colony found it to be too expensive to operate, would they have the right to, say, shut off life support, thereby killing the colonists? Or would they have the right to dismantle the colony, with everyone still inside, thereby killing them?

In order to make the analogy exact, the company in question would have to hire armed guards ready to stop anybody else from rescuing the colonists.

My original point, however, was to point out the inanity of the claims that insisting that a technical fix be used would mysteriously shut down technological development. (A particularly annoying example can be found at Hot Needle of Inquiry.)

By the way, which nation is more likely lead in the Intelligence Amplification sweepstakes? A nation where victims of Down's syndrome “don't get out of the delivery room”? Or a nation where yucky artificial means are routinely used to solve problems?

And now for a remark on the Other Side's trump card: I doubt if the existence of Creationists will have any effect. I haven't heard of many instances of otherwise qualified people being deflected from careers in medical research by a belief in a 6000-year-old Earth. Creationists aren't the red-state version of scientists; they're the red-state version of New Age Loons.