[Avodah] Pikuach Nefesh

[Moshe Y. Gluck]

R' ZS:
Or the hijackers might have done teshuvah.  They were not robots, they were
moral agents, fully responsible for their actions, and thus capable of
changing them.  Therefore nothing was inevitable.

R' BW:
By that thinking, what right is there to take down a rodef? Maybe he'll do 
teshuvah?

Rather, you judge the situation as it is right now, at this moment and leave

the future to the future.
---------------------------

To add to what R' BW is saying, I think that in the context of a plane
flying towards a collision course with a city, everyone in the plane -
however unwilling their participation - is considered a rodef relative to
the people in the city whose lives would be saved should the plane be shot
down. 
May we never be faced with these kinds of choices.

KT,
MYG