Ethical Dilemma – Stolen Treatment For Terminal Illness

At school, I’m taking an ethics class and my semester-long assignment is to come up with ethical dilemmas and discuss them. I’ll post those that relate somewhat to politics here. Note: I did not actually come up with this dilemma. Professor Honeycutt mentioned it in class – I do not know if he came up with it or got it from somewhere else.

These will also be stored under this “Ethical Dilemmas” page.

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Dilemma:  A man’s wife is terminally ill. However, a doctor has developed treatment, but asks $200K in exchange. The woman’s husband, lacking the financial resources, breaks in and steals the treatment and gets caught. What should be done with him?

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In this instance, I would have to conclude that a) the treatment should be returned if it has yet to be used or some arrangement for paying for it should be reached if it has been used, and b) the man should face some consequences (what those are would be up to the justice system).  There are two main reasons for this. The first is that the man broke the law. Even in a case where someone is ethically in the right, they should be willing to face the consequences of their actions. If that is not followed, then to what degree the law is followed will vary for each and every person; in such a situation, law and order breaks down. Not facing consequences would only encourage repetition. Please note that I am not saying that the man is in the wrong for breaking the law. It is certainly conceivable that his conscience should be clear, but he must still face consequences.

The second reason has to do with whether or not his action was, in fact, ethical. Doctors, in general, do not simply demand a sizeable sum of money for no reason, even if that reason is not readily apparent. How many years of the doctor’s life have gone into the research for this treatment? What has he sacrificed? How much money has he poured into it? These questions are all relatively trivial (one man’s finances are not more important than the life of another’s wife), but worth asking.

More importantly, the doctor probably has one of two reasons for demanding so much money. The first is straightforward: money. The doctor wants money, either for profit or to compensate for his expended resources or to put into further research and development. This may or may not be a matter of greed (see the questions above), but it comes down to the same thing. Now, if that is his motivation, why would he demand an amount beyond an ill person’s means? He gains nothing in that scenario and would do so for only one of two reasons that I can conceive. If the treatment simply costs that much (requires a lot of costly chemicals or some such thing), then why should the doctor be the one to pay? While sympathy drives us to side with the sick woman, bankrupting researching medical doctors cannot possibly be in humanity’s best interest – note that this sort of situation could likely arise around research involving any terminal illness or condition and allowing such thievery to transpire would have the end result of destroying medical research on fatal sicknesses. Then where would we be?

Or perhaps the cost of the treatment is relatively small, but it is a matter of supply and demand. There could be half a dozen people with the same condition, but only one “dose” of available treatment to go around. The doctor is not seeking money, but raising the cost is the only way he knows to reduce the number of patients to match the supply. Perhaps essentially giving the treatment to the most financially rich patient is not the best way to choose who gets it, but neither is giving it to the patient with the most dedicated relative or the patient with the least amount of respect for the law. In either of those cases, murderous members of the Mafia would likely take precedence over a farmer, or a doctor, or a teacher or police officer.

Am I saying that the man was ethically wrong? No – for all we know, the doctor is a sadist who gets off watching people die with salvation just out of reach (although why such a man is researching cures to illnesses is beyond me). Am I saying that I wouldn’t do the same thing (after exhausting all preferable alternatives, of course)? No. This situation is extremely different from any of my experiences, so I cannot say with any certainty how I would act. But, in conclusion, the man must face the consequences of his actions and reparations must be made (either by returning treatment and paying to fix any damages such as broken windows or by paying for the used treatment).

Chicago

I went to Chicago over the weekend. My church and many sister churches were part of the ICMC (International Campus Ministry Conference), where a bunch of college students get together and fellowship and learn stuff. On Friday, we had the HOPE “day of service” called “Lots of Change.” Basically, most of the students at the ICMC went around a rough Chicago neighborhood called Englewood and picked up a lot of trash.

Afterwards, we all met up at Sherman Park, had lunch, and listened to a few of the people who organized/sponsored Lots of Change give speeches. It was great and I got to hang out with some friends I haven’t seen in years, but there were two or three things that ticked me off (although this wasn’t a surprise; it is Chicago).

An Illinois state senator got up and gave a short speech. In it, he quoted MLK and, later, read a bit from one of the Corinthean books (he just said “Corintheans” without a number – and I think without a chapter or verse). Anyway, when he mentioned Corintheans, a bunch of students cheered a bit (we weren’t expecting a secular speaker to read from the Bible). He then destroyed any rapport he’d gained with us with a snide remark along these lines “So Corintheans gets applause and MLK doesn’t?”

That’s right, Mr. Senator. MLK was definitely a great guy and a historic figure, but there are two reasons we would honor Corintheans more than him.

1. Everyone and his dog quotes MLK. This is not a bad thing, but if people applauded every time MLK was quoted, we’d probably need new hands (evidenced by the fact that the speaker before him also quoted MLK).
2. Any true Christian would not put MLK on the same level as the apostles. And I really, really doubt MLK would put himself on the same level as them. He was a great orator and all, but the apostles had the explicit approval of the Lord.

At some point, Chicago’s mayor Richard Daley gave a speech. First of all, let me say that I’m automatically suspicious of anyone who’s held a position like mayor for over twenty years – be they hardcore conservative or super-green-hippie liberal. But more specifically, he brought two political issues into his speech that had no business there.

1. He spoke very passionately against the U.S. gun industry. He specifically mentioned an NRA rider on the Obamacare bill that prevents a gun owner’s insurance from going up or something if he accidentally shoots his neighbor’s kid.
2. He talked about how we need to stop the warmongers.

Let me first say that if that rider he mentioned is what he made it out to be, then I agree with him that it shouldn’t have been passed. That said, he had no business attacking the gun industry.

1. I’m sure he utilizes many guns indirectly. He’s a mayor! He’s got bodyguards, and there’s a large police force in his city. What does he think they use to defend folks? Archery?
2. Guns are no more evil than the Internet, or pencils, or hammers, or any other tool. And a mayor who’s probably (albeit unintentionally) helped the illegal gun industry a lot (by supporting gun bans) shouldn’t be criticizing the legitimate gun industry.
3. It isn’t the wisest thing to mention any political issue when you’re talking to folks from all over the country – and even some other countries. The majority of the guys staying in my hotel room were pretty ticked off by his comments.

When he talked about warmongers, I’m assuming he meant proponents of our military presence in the Middle East (he complained that we spend billions of dollars on our military overseas, but can’t spend the money to help people in Chicago’s low-class neighborhoods) or perhaps Republicans in general, since that is one of the Dem’s nicknames for the GOP.

1. I may not fully agree with the military’s actions, but you cannot deny the good we have done in Iraq, at least. You cannot honestly compare cleaning up trash to saving many lives from terrorism/militant fascism.
2. No one who spends their city’s money on “green” stuff has any right to complain about how the nation’s money is spent on the military (he was touted for his environmentalism, among other things, when he was introduced). Even if I thought “climate change” was a threat, I’d consider other things much more important (at least immediately so).
3. Maybe you ought to focus less on funneling money into the areas and more on convincing those who need help to help themselves. I’m not saying we shouldn’t do stuff like what we did at Lots of Change, but anything you do to help them like that is just a quick fix; a remedy for the symptoms. There were several people who came out and watched us pick up trash. They were nice and polite and all (and they thanked us, too), but why weren’t they cleaning up? This trash we picked up was usually on or near the sidewalk; a lot of it was in people’s own front yards! They just don’t care enough to clean it up. Until you fix that, the trash will just build up again. This principle transfers to more serious things, too. You could confiscate all the guns in Englewood (which had well over 100 homicides this past year), but until you get a stronger police presence (only so much police is good), or eliminate the desire to kill each other, or loosen gun control laws (enabling folks to defend themselves – the laws obviously aren’t stopping the violence), or some combination thereof, you’ll continue to have violence and they’ll just get replacements.

Torture Week At NCSU

It’s the semi-annual torture week at NC State, where we students have undue stress placed on our minds via a series of intense, paper-based interrogations about what we know in various academic fields.  I had my Statistics interrogation this morning, and if this class has taught me anything, it’s this: don’t trust statistics unless you know specifics about how they were obtained, except the ones I give you, of course; because I can’t provide specifics, since they’re all made up (notice the “ish”-es). I mean, P-value? What the heck is that supposed to mean?

Seriously, though, don’t trust statistics. Staticians are nothing more than spokesmen who are good with numbers (or bad, depending on how you view it).

Hello World! My Name is Andrew.

I’m sorry, but I had to do the “Hello World!” thing, I’m a computer science major. Now just a bit about me and what this blog will be about.

I’m an avid reader of IMAO and occassional reader of Treacher and others and figured I’d start my own. I also watch Zo (through IMAO) and Crowder (through YouTube). Obviously, I’m a rightwing extremist, as stated by a recent Department of Homeland Security report, since, as a conservative, I hate abortion. And that, my friends, is what this blog will be about. Conservatism…not abortion…

Now, unlike IMAO and Treacher, this blog will focus a bit more on the issues and news and a bit less on the humor. Why? Frankly, because I’m not that funny and I’ll leave that up to the professionals. But I like to think I’m funny. I’ll try to make jokes along the way. If they’re bad, let me know, so I can look like an even bigger idiot when I ignore you.

Another thing is that, unlike atheist conservative Harvey, I am a Christian. I hope to have a second blog, or second category, or something for that because, as you will see, they’ll often separate in topic. But there will be much overflow, so maybe I’ll abandon that whole idea. I’m so decisive, it hurts.

Now, as a Christian, I have a few requests to make of anyone who comments on my blog.

Don’t use foul language. By that, I mean that anything that counts as “unwholesome talk.” Avoid any profanity or misuse of God’s or Jesus’ names or titles. And while insults to me and to others will happen, please try to practice restraint.

I WILL DELETE/CENSOR POSTS WITH PROFANITY OR MISUSE OF ONE OF THE TRINITY’S NAME OR TITLE. Other than that, I will merely request courtesy to everyone.

Let me clarify the whole “misuse” thing real quick. If you say “Thank God…” that’s OK by me. But if you say something like “Jesus!” (as in an exclamation like “Darn!”) that will not be tolerated. I’ll delete the post (and nothing more).

Let’s see… That’s pretty much it. I’ll tell ya’ll a bit about myself and then move on to the first real post.

I’m a student at North Carolina State University – College of Engineering. I’m majoring in Computer Science and minoring in Spanish (to my fellow haters of illegal immigration and such; I’m just learning Spanish because I want to – not because I think people should). I currently work in a fast-food joint near campus. You gottaneedagettawanna have their chicken fried. I LOVE country music/southern rock. I don’t really hate any kind of music (I even have a rap song or two – and by that, I mean two). But I can’t stand the women-degrading, drug-promoting, or sex-promoting stuff.

My background in politics/religion. My parents are both hardline conservative Christians (but I don’t take what they say on faith, generally, as per the parable of the soils, I have my own roots). My dad and I talk both a lot and agree VERY closely on pretty much everything. He’s a carpenter/private construction contractor, which I love. Because, when he gets into debates with preachers/ministers and they ask what he does, he gets to say “I’m just a humble carpenter.” It’d be totally awesome if we were Jewish (“race”, not religion). My mom’s a self-employed accountant for a few local businesses. I’m the oldest of four children. My brother, adopted from India, is a year and a half younger than me. My sister is three weeks younger than him. I swear, she was not born, but cloned from my mother. My other sister is a year and a half younger than her…putting our birthdays only two days apart…which I hate. We live in rural suburbs, raise chickens, and have a garden. Before we moved here, we lived on the grounds of the church “R” Camp in Culpeper, Virginia, where my dad was the caretaker/constructiony-person and my mom was the administrator. So, I’m from the country and I like it that way. The town had two stop signs, no stop lights, one mom ‘n pop store and no four-way intersections.

One last thing. I’ll link to tons of songs, websites, articles and such, but do not necessarily agree with them all on everything. For example, I don’t agree with the cursing in the IMAO posts, but they still make good points…and are usually rather funny, too (but only if you’re not a Kool-Aid Drinkin’ liberal hippie).