Re: [asa] health care

I haven't read all the preceding posts in this thread, so I risk
repeating previously made points.

This ASA list is a venue for us to air our own thoughts (even thoughts
we are merely dabbling in but not committed to) in an atmosphere that is
somewhat more impartial than when we are among our own family or
community. So here goes.

What if science eventually informs us that all our medicines and zealous
'cradle-to-grave' health care options are leading our human population
in bad evolutionary directions? I.e. that we are enabling an
affluent-like reproductive behavior of many who, in other cultures &
times, would not have opted to have children (or less of them). That
said: I am just as horrified about evils like 'Eugenics' as the next guy
and will pontificate on such. Yet the mere suggestion that we are an
'over-medicated', 'over-treated' culture can be seen as nothing more
than cruelty when we begin to put personal names with policies. E.g. I
may feel that pharmaceuticals are way out of hand as a matter of
'impersonal' opinion, but I can't begin to say such things, or even
grant my thoughts much legitimacy around my own loved ones who
themselves feel that their lives or mental health have literally been
saved by regular pharmacology of one form or another. So the mere
thoughts of such medical "excess" are taboo -- and I suspect this is
probably true for most of us who ever entertain similar thoughts. It's
put on the same level as suggesting that we should turn our elderly
loose on the next outgoing ice flow. To add even more cognitive
dissonance to my contemplations here: I claim to be a Christian. And
as such I very much resonate with the thought that the quality of a
society can be directly assessed by how it treats its weakest, lowliest,
most powerless members.

My convictions can only seem to find application in one setting, and
that is for myself. I can leave a living will in the event of my
medical demise; I can refuse to pop pills at every little sign of
discomfort as pharmaceutical companies try to condition us to do; I can
at least apply this all to myself and try to make sure I don't blow
nest-egg proportion fortunes in my last hours and days of life. In
doing so I merely hope to join the 80+% of humanity that already has no
choice about these things anyway. But such ambitions (if I succeed in
actually sticking to them) look particularly ugly when we attempt to
turn them into public policy -- witness all the talk about 'death
panels'. What is the range of Christian options on this as others see
it?

And to say that we have no universally agreed morality (forcing this all
into the realm of mere politics) may be true enough. But there is a
forced morality that will prevail over us one way or another. Social
conservative policy may place more emphasis on merit or societal benefit
a la Herbert Spencer. Social liberal policy may place more emphasis on
unconditional entitlements that every human ought to have, worthy or
not. Whenever either of these tensions prevail, all the constituents
then live under the moral umbrella of that policy whether they endorse
it or not. And as other here can point out, to endorse nothing is
actually to endorse something. So there is no way to escape hard choices.

--Merv

Nucacids wrote:
> Hi Jack,
>
> "Discussions on how health care is delievered is interesting, but more
> political than moral or scientific. But there is no question that
> resources
> used in providing health care are limited. I would like to see a
> discussion on who deserves to get what and at what time, and who decides
> this?"
>
> If the discussion is about who deserves to get what and at what time,
> and who decides
> this, it is necessarily a political discussion. Science cannot answer
> these questions.
>
> And since we live in cultures where moral assumptions and positions
> are not universally
>
> shared, there is nothing left but politics.
>
> Mike

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Received on Fri Sep 25 22:07:18 2009