Life And Death Moral Scenario

[SaintOfVirtue]

They could go to the ER. In the ER they basically "shoot first ask questions about finances later"

[SaintOfVirtue]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' date='15 July 2010 - 02:37 PM' timestamp='1279229850' post='2143109']
I was just thinking of something. As Catholics, don't we consider *access to* healthcare a human right? (I don't read the word "free" into that as some people like to do, but just simple access to services.)

If access to healthcare is a right, and a law prevents access to healthcare for someone, then that law can be ignored without sin. Am I right?
[/quote]

People can never agree on what qualifies as "healthcare" either; it is quite an ambiguous statement.

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='SaintOfVirtue' date='15 July 2010 - 05:41 PM' timestamp='1279233719' post='2143152']
People can never agree on what qualifies as "healthcare" either; it is quite an ambiguous statement.
[/quote]
So true.

However, emergency medicine to save someone's life should qualify across the board, right?

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Winchester' date='15 July 2010 - 08:44 AM' timestamp='1279201495' post='2142935']
At it's heart, this is a question about whether it's permissible to lie to preserve human life. It is permissible, and I would do it in many circumstances.
[/quote]

What does "permissible" mean? Does that mean that an act that is intrinsically evil, and thus a sin, is sometimes not evil? Or is evil sometimes permissible?

~Sternhauser

Edited July 15, 2010 by Sternhauser

[Slappo]

I honestly don't think you can morally lie and put the one person on the others health insurance.

Principle of double effect includes that the evil must come at the same time as the good or be an effect of the good, not the good an effect of the evil.

This lie is not like hiding a jew from the nazi's as that is information being asked that someone does not have the right to. This is blatant lying. "Yes I have health insurance, and this is my card."

It is only [b]possible[/b] that a good effect will come from the evil lie. It could be that the hospital would have treated him with or without insurance. It could also be that although the hospital treats him he still dies. It could also be that even with insurance he has to wait for an hour and during that hour he dies or reaches a point of no return.

We have a right to health care, but we do not have a right to lie to receive that health care.

[Nihil Obstat]

I overlooked the act of lying when I posted back there.

Best part is that I get to blame the anesthetic I'm on until tomorrow.

[Mark of the Cross]

In the scenario given, an option might be to use the card then come clean after treatment and offer to pay somehow? The sin can be forgiven when recompense is offered. Yes?? (that's a question not a statement) However I would hope that the US would consider it a moral obligation to treat first ask financial questions later. It certainly is in Oz. If the media got hold of a violation there would be hell to pay.

[Mark of the Cross]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' date='16 July 2010 - 11:18 AM' timestamp='1279235907' post='2143168']
I overlooked the act of lying when I posted back there.

Best part is that I get to blame the anesthetic I'm on until tomorrow.
[/quote]

At least you have an excuse. I behave as though I am on an anaesthetic normally.

[Winchester]

[quote name='Sternhauser' date='15 July 2010 - 07:10 PM' timestamp='1279235451' post='2143164']
What does "permissible" mean? Does that mean that an act that is intrinsically evil, and thus a sin, is sometimes not evil? Or is evil sometimes permissible?

~Sternhauser
[/quote]
I mean to say it might not be a sin, but it still would not be good of itself. However, preservation of a life could take precedence over a social contract. We're talking about human life on one hand and money on the other. It may be permissible to lie to save someone's life. In the given scenario, there is reason to fear the person will not receive adequate care without proof of insurance.

[dairygirl4u2c]

i like how quickly the debate goes to rationalize not helping out, trying to insist on alternatives to deception, like finding alterantive hospitals. or, how many hospitals might have to treat them. sure, we do ahve to consider all alterantives before 'justifying the means', or at least even considering it, etc. and for that, these posts are okay.
but they miss the point, and not just hte point of the ethics assignment.
when push comes to shove, does the end justify the means? are you willing to live with yourself when someone innocent dies, for the sake of your precious principles? over things that aren't really hurting anyone?
i can respect saying the ends doesn't justify the means, generally. in this situation, i suppose i could see many views. sometimes it's not respectable, at all, though.

im a proportionalist, through and through
(as opposed to pure consequentialism, and deontology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportionalism

Edited July 16, 2010 by dairygirl4u2c

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Winchester' date='15 July 2010 - 07:21 PM' timestamp='1279239710' post='2143198']
I mean to say it might not be a sin, but it still would not be good of itself. However, preservation of a life could take precedence over a social contract. We're talking about human life on one hand and money on the other. It may be permissible to lie to save someone's life. In the given scenario, there is reason to fear the person will not receive adequate care without proof of insurance.
[/quote]

If the act is intrinsically morally wrong, as lying is, then it is a sin. Sins are never permissible.

Culpability for sin is an entirely different issue. Whether one is culpable for a sin depends, in part, on the degree of consent of the will.

Lying is never morally acceptable. One may never deliberately take that route. Not even if all the innocent lives of the entire world depended on it. We are called to be radical Catholics. It is preferable to die than to commit one venial sin.

~Sternhauser

[Mark of the Cross]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' date='16 July 2010 - 01:04 PM' timestamp='1279242280' post='2143213']
are you willing to live with yourself when someone innocent dies, for the sake of your precious principles? over things that aren't really hurting anyone?

[/quote]

'There is no greater love than to lay down ones own life for another.' I think to sin and thus to take a burden on self to save some-ones life could be covered by this.

[tinytherese]

Class was odd. Those for using the card went into one room and those against (me) went stayed where we were. I was surprised to be on the majority side. Then the others came back in while some people were assigned to "helping Benny" (in the parking lot since we don't have mountains around here ) so that he wouldn't get even more hurt. Eventually, some people supposedly got into our professor's truck to drive him to the hospital. We didn't actually see what they were doing or if someone volunteered to be Benny or what since I we were confined to the building.

Then there was the debate. We had a hard time trying to explain to the other side that considering his serious condition he would be immediately treated before even discussing payment. They insisted that he would be treated much later and wouldn't get the best treatment available. (My side was confused about what the article meant by not getting the better care for not having insurance.) I brought up how you would need to show your driver's licence with the insurance card to verify proof, but that point seemed to go unnoticed by my peers.

Once we were finished debating, our teacher went off somewhere for a little bit and came back to tell us that Benny had died before getting to the hospital. The rest of the class soon returned.

I think if our professor wanted to teach us about whether we should lie to save someone's life or not that he should use a better example than this one.

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Mark of the Cross' date='15 July 2010 - 09:06 PM' timestamp='1279245964' post='2143242']
'There is no greater love than to lay down ones own life for another.' I think to sin and thus to take a burden on self to save some-ones life could be covered by this.
[/quote]

Your statement is heretical, though I know you don't realize it is.

Are you really claiming that God can be pleased by a sinful act?

~Sternhauser

Edited July 16, 2010 by Sternhauser

[MissScripture]

[quote name='tinytherese' date='15 July 2010 - 10:07 PM' timestamp='1279246073' post='2143244']
Class was odd. Those for using the card went into one room and those against (me) went stayed where we were. I was surprised to be on the majority side. Then the others came back in while some people were assigned to "helping Benny" (in the parking lot since we don't have mountains around here ) so that he wouldn't get even more hurt. Eventually, some people supposedly got into our professor's truck to drive him to the hospital. We didn't actually see what they were doing or if someone volunteered to be Benny or what since I we were confined to the building.

Then there was the debate. We had a hard time trying to explain to the other side that considering his serious condition he would be immediately treated before even discussing payment. They insisted that he would be treated much later and wouldn't get the best treatment available. (My side was confused about what the article meant by not getting the better care for not having insurance.) [b]I brought up how you would need to show your driver's licence with the insurance card to verify proof, but that point seemed to go unnoticed by my peers.[/b]

Once we were finished debating, our teacher went off somewhere for a little bit and came back to tell us that Benny had died before getting to the hospital. The rest of the class soon returned.

I think if our professor wanted to teach us about whether we should lie to save someone's life or not that he should use a better example than this one.
[/quote]
This doesn't really surprise me, since it has always seemed to me, in any class debate that I've ever been involved in, there is really very little listening done.

Edited July 16, 2010 by MissScripture