Another issue that came up during our lab two days ago was about people's philosophies in life. All of us having our little rules and beliefs that we think we believe and run our lives by. The thought that it could be challenged, not by others, but by our circumstances, by ourselves was one that probably rarely occurs to us. And when it does, I rarely take the thought very far.
But one example that came up was abortion. There are a couple of people who enjoy whittling away their time standing outside the entrance to the hospital with anti-abortion signs. That's all they do. Not that they can't do it, since it's a free country after all, but I wonder, when they think about abortion and all its evils and associations with the devil and killing of innocents or whatever it is they want to think it is about, do they stop and think about why people choose to do it? It is after all a major step for the woman/ couple. There are risks involved that could endanger her life. There are counselling for people who choose this path because it's by no means un-traumatic experience. It's not a joke. They have their reasons, and who are we to judge their beliefs and life philosophies by? This we campaign so fully against, and yet other cruelties in society that take place that just happen to not be right under the spotlight continue to take place, to the point of either pretending to not see or worse still, legalising it so it and us don't look bad. But I think I might be straying off the point here. The thing is, have they ever been in the shoes of the person who was about to subject herself to the procedure? Do they see things from her perspective? I shan't talk about the actual example given to me because of privacy reasons, but then what if it were their daughters or sons that were involved?
On the same line is about faithfulness. Because of genetic illnesses that progressively worsen, with no cure appearing on the horizon, and chuck in personality changes or two because of the disease, and you have got yourself there reasons for estrangement between what was once a happy couple. But they are still together, though albeit far apart. Someone told me a story of a woman whose husband left her because her disease left her dependent on colostomy bags. He just couldn't handle it. Immediately most of us would jump up and say goodness, what a ****head he is, is he a man at all, what a weakling! Tell the truth. That's probably your reaction had you not been reading what was above, though it may not be that up and down, hands in the air type as I made it sound like. But as M.B. said, we may say that, but how many of us can say we have been tested as such? How many of us can say we have been through that and proven ourselves not the weakling? Our ideal of course is that our partner would ride it out with us even with a colostomy bag in between. Our philosophy is that faithfulness and love to our partner is IT. That was probably what that husband thought, until it really happened to him. His philosophy changed then. Would ours? Sure you can say of course not, and still make a moral judgement on him, but is that right as well?
And this brings me to my ethics tutorials as well. It's all nice and fine to make up little scenarios such as flick-this-switch-kill-one-save-ten dilemmas and then talk and argue about what we should do or not. Why talk about such a situation? Choose option A if you like, but come to the real situation, is that what you will still do? Or would option B, or even C be yours? It may uncover some of the moral issues entangled within those sort of questions, but ultimately things don't always pan out as we think it will in real life. We may argue that the nasty smoker brought his lung cancer on himself and triage him out of funding for treatment, but we haven't met those people. They are merely ifs someone thought out on paper. We haven't met the others who will be affected by the results of the triage as well. We haven't been exposed to the real situation. I remember that tutorial well. Some people argued till they were practically almost blue in the face, but in the end there wasn't a real conclusion or decision who shall be saved and who shall be left out in the cold. Life isn't always ideal, but if it doesn't come to that situation, we can sure talk big about our philosophies and ideals and beliefs. What happens when it does? Don't answer until you are in it.
But one example that came up was abortion. There are a couple of people who enjoy whittling away their time standing outside the entrance to the hospital with anti-abortion signs. That's all they do. Not that they can't do it, since it's a free country after all, but I wonder, when they think about abortion and all its evils and associations with the devil and killing of innocents or whatever it is they want to think it is about, do they stop and think about why people choose to do it? It is after all a major step for the woman/ couple. There are risks involved that could endanger her life. There are counselling for people who choose this path because it's by no means un-traumatic experience. It's not a joke. They have their reasons, and who are we to judge their beliefs and life philosophies by? This we campaign so fully against, and yet other cruelties in society that take place that just happen to not be right under the spotlight continue to take place, to the point of either pretending to not see or worse still, legalising it so it and us don't look bad. But I think I might be straying off the point here. The thing is, have they ever been in the shoes of the person who was about to subject herself to the procedure? Do they see things from her perspective? I shan't talk about the actual example given to me because of privacy reasons, but then what if it were their daughters or sons that were involved?
On the same line is about faithfulness. Because of genetic illnesses that progressively worsen, with no cure appearing on the horizon, and chuck in personality changes or two because of the disease, and you have got yourself there reasons for estrangement between what was once a happy couple. But they are still together, though albeit far apart. Someone told me a story of a woman whose husband left her because her disease left her dependent on colostomy bags. He just couldn't handle it. Immediately most of us would jump up and say goodness, what a ****head he is, is he a man at all, what a weakling! Tell the truth. That's probably your reaction had you not been reading what was above, though it may not be that up and down, hands in the air type as I made it sound like. But as M.B. said, we may say that, but how many of us can say we have been tested as such? How many of us can say we have been through that and proven ourselves not the weakling? Our ideal of course is that our partner would ride it out with us even with a colostomy bag in between. Our philosophy is that faithfulness and love to our partner is IT. That was probably what that husband thought, until it really happened to him. His philosophy changed then. Would ours? Sure you can say of course not, and still make a moral judgement on him, but is that right as well?
And this brings me to my ethics tutorials as well. It's all nice and fine to make up little scenarios such as flick-this-switch-kill-one-save-ten dilemmas and then talk and argue about what we should do or not. Why talk about such a situation? Choose option A if you like, but come to the real situation, is that what you will still do? Or would option B, or even C be yours? It may uncover some of the moral issues entangled within those sort of questions, but ultimately things don't always pan out as we think it will in real life. We may argue that the nasty smoker brought his lung cancer on himself and triage him out of funding for treatment, but we haven't met those people. They are merely ifs someone thought out on paper. We haven't met the others who will be affected by the results of the triage as well. We haven't been exposed to the real situation. I remember that tutorial well. Some people argued till they were practically almost blue in the face, but in the end there wasn't a real conclusion or decision who shall be saved and who shall be left out in the cold. Life isn't always ideal, but if it doesn't come to that situation, we can sure talk big about our philosophies and ideals and beliefs. What happens when it does? Don't answer until you are in it.
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