Bioethics Discussion Blog: "Being Alive vs Having a Life"

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Wednesday, July 23, 2008

"Being Alive vs Having a Life"

Ethicist Erich Loewy challenges me with the following:

"You are standing in front of a building which is on fire and two things are trapped in it: the one a happy carpenter with three children and the other a Petridish with developing stem cells. You can only rescue one. What would you do?"

Here is an answer some person might give:

""I would not rescue either because they are of equal worth."

What answer would you give? Is simply being alive the same as being aware of and participating in a life? ..Maurice.

1 Comments:

At Tuesday, August 05, 2008 10:36:00 PM, Blogger Maurice Bernstein, M.D. said...

When presented with this dilemma, my 8 year old grandson answered simply "you save the life of the carpenter who is holding on to the Petri dish."
Out of the mouths of babes.. ..Maurice.

 

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