In a lawsuit seeking payment for expensive medical proceedures on her invalid, incurable son. Her home was seized, sold and she found herself ousted. When I met her she was living in a small travel trailer and working in this office for her rent. She is 80 plus. I told her I would tell her story to the world so others might be warned.
I've "doctored" her image as I didn't get permission to show the real thing--This one was surreptitiously shot so I would not intefere with the flow of her story.
She is not responsible for my interpretation or philosophical opinions.
More than 51 years ago, she gave birth to a severly defective son suffering from spinabifida. Doctors said he would likely die within a year. Turns out, he lived for 51 years and this lady took care of him the entire time. She, in effect, sacrificed the lions share of her life and hapiness for him---and he had no meaningful life either. When he finally spiraled beyond hope, he fell into the grip of the medical community whose ethic will not permit a peaceful euthanasia but requires sustaining life as long as possible. It was an expensive dying--about $300,000. The courts said she was responsible for the bill and thus she lost her house. Now she scrimps along doing what she can with the remainder of her life.
RANDY PHILOSOPHIZES: Are you enraged? I think you should be! This lady is thrice victimized---BY SENTIMENTALITY.
To begin with, we should not allow seriously defective babies to live. Who says so? Not just me but the most serious ethical thinkers in the world. Peter Singer for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer
And if you'd like to read both sides of the story:
Secondly, we should not burden this poor woman with the decision at either end of life. We really do need DEATH PANELS composed of the wisest among us, representing a cross section of our peers to make the tough calls----both at the beginning and end of life. We dare not let husbands, wives
or children make these decisions. They may be motivated by greed on one hand or sentimentality on the other. Society as a whole has a stake in these very expensive decisions.
Here is a clear cut case where two lives and vast expenditures were squandered out of sheer sentimentality. And guess what: One of those severly deformed babies who was allowed to live actually wrote a book describing his incredible suffering and HE SAYS THAT HE SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ALLOWED TO LIVE. (I'm trying to find the title for you)
Let me anticipate an objection: I am not talking about people WHO BECOME SEVERLY DISABLED. That is another issue entirely. As is the right to assisted suicide.
People who believe that ethics is revealed in "Holy Books" rather than hashed out in human experience---cannot help us behave wisely---Indeed they have always been an impediment to
rational ethics.
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