Reframed clearly, the answer is no, because moral permissibility does not hinge on whether the victim understands or objects to what is happening.
The claim that killing is acceptable as long as someone “won’t know what hit them” breaks down once it’s applied consistently. A person’s lack of awareness at a given moment has never been treated as permission to kill them. Someone in a temporary, reversible coma may be entirely unaware of their surroundings and unable to grasp what death is, yet it would still be gravely wrong to end their life—especially when they are expected to recover and continue living normally. Their ignorance of what is happening does not erase their moral worth.
The same reasoning applies to human beings in early development. A fetus may not yet be aware of its own existence, but that lack of awareness does not cancel its moral claim to protection. Appealing to self-awareness as the standard also fails when applied to infants. Newborns and young babies do not yet possess developed self-awareness or an understanding of their own continued existence, yet it is universally recognized that killing them would be unacceptable.
What these cases show is that awareness of being alive is not—and cannot be—the standard that determines whether it is permissible to kill a human being. If the right not to be killed depends on current mental abilities, then the protection of human life becomes unstable and arbitrarily selective. A consistent moral framework instead treats all humans as equally deserving of protection from violence, regardless of their stage of development or present cognitive capacities.
Key Takeaways
Lack of awareness or objection has never been a moral justification for killing, as shown by cases involving comatose patients and infants.
Standards based on self-awareness collapse when applied consistently, since they would also permit killing born humans we clearly believe must be protected.
Moral worth does not depend on current mental abilities but on being a human being with a future ahead of them.
Equal human rights require equal protection from violence, including for unborn humans who cannot yet speak or understand what is happening to them.