As I was driving home this evening, I was listening to a tape of C.
Everett Koop, former Surgeon General of the U.S. With the recent
questions of this post concerning morality, I got to thinking about
abortion and health care (the subjects he was discussing). One of the
cases he presented was that of "Baby Doe" a newborn with life
threatening health issues who also was diagnosed with down's syndrome.
The case (as I understand it) dealth with the parents' refusal to
treat the baby. They had supposedly been informed that the child's
condition had less than a 50% survival rate. It got me thinking about
a moral question (which as I started thinking about it, led my brain
into a viscious piral of thought). Case: a child is born with life
threatening condition. Do the parents' authorize expensive, but
potentially life saving treatment?
Which is the "moral" choice. To deny treatment would potentially
eliminate a source of intellect. But what if the use of those
resources (remember - it's expensive) make it impossible to treat
someone with an illness that would cost less to treat (thereby losing
other potential sources of intellect)? And then there's the idea that
the original child we're speaking of may one day grow up to discover a
way to treat ALL people in a way that we're not aware of at present?
(A conundrum I've heard posed comes to mind - if time travel were
possible and you could go back to when Hitler was an infant, would it
be "moral" to kill the young Hitler before he had a chance to put into
place his "Final Solution" (the killing of one being justified by the
saving of millions))
I'm not sure if my message is coming across clearly. Maybe all I'm
saying is, "Is there a way to decide the morality of a decision if we
don't know all the factors (and can never really know since some of
them are "potential" factors)?"
Shalom
David Lind
Trickster@postmark.net
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