True enough. We are all faced with the same basic ideas and issues at the most basic level. But we are also shaped by our environment, our expectations and our society.
It's like the old frog in the pan heated slowly, cultures can diverge over matters about which most of us would cringe. What day would YOU wake up and as a member of society think that it was okay to kill some virgin in sacrifice to the Sun God?
I don't need any higher, absolute moral authority because I've got a utilitarian and logical set of constructs that I'm willing to use. It isn't logical to spend 90% of our medical dollars to extend people's lives (with more suffering) for a mere 6 months (a statistical fact, unfortunately).
At the same time, Drs. won't prescribe heroine (our best pain killer, which is very cheap to produce) for terminal cancer patients because of a society that has really strange notions about addiction and the morality thereof. Seems to me, as a person involved in health care, our first duty is to the patient and the war is against suffering.
Now, I ask you, if you know anyone who has ever been intubated for any period of time (I have), would you want to live your last six months that way in a ICU, deprived of pain killers or slip away in a hospice, surrounded by your family, doped up on morphine or heroine? I know my vote. |
