Outside Reading Blog 1 - Simon Robson

    Morality of Medicine

04/26/2021

     Today I decided to read a little bit about the morality of medicine after thinking more about the movie The Fountain that we watched in class. This film brought up many questions about life and death and the ways in which it can be unethical to take life and death into human hands. This movie featured a main storyline of a man trying to find a cure for his wife’s cancer but also featured other storylines that emphasized this idea of ethics when it comes to life and death and the idea of prolonging death. It made me think more about if medicine was a strictly good thing or if there may be some ethical questions to be asked about that. In lieu of this I found an article on the Catholic Education Resource Center website that talked about the morality of medicine. This article claimed that medicine was an inescapably moral industry as physicians are always attempting to do good for their patients and help them avoid evil. The article stated that every decision made by a professional in the medical field will be a moral dilemma, whether they acknowledge this or not. The article states that often they do not see it this way as they were trained in a certain way of thinking from their years in medical school and everything else, so even if they acknowledge the moral side of the decision they almost always think they are making the inherently right moral decision. The specific idea of a correct moral decision can vary from person to person, but in some cases are still close to unanimous. One of the most famous moral dilemmas regarding medicine however is the idea of being able to take someone off of life support. Is it moral to end someone's life just based on the assumption that they are suffering? Is it considered suicide if they ask to be taken off life support? In different religions there are different beliefs surrounding suicide as well. It is all important to think about and understand the implications of attempting to control life and death. 


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