by Jack Lee
I was reading a story in today’s news about a young man born with a severe mental disability who is currently costing the taxpayers $109,000 per year for around the clock care. He is prone to violent outbursts and often attacks his male and female nurses in sudden fits of rage. Actually, his case is not too unusual and many of our care facilities charge even more to care for such people. The cost can range from $100k up to $250,000 a year for the most severely disabled that are also dangerously violent.
These are warehoused people often forgotten by everyone except for those professionals who must keep them alive. In the medical world it’s called watering the plants, because the people they treat are little more than vegetables.
This story about the severely disabled and the costs associated with their care got me thinking about how we have evolved and how we currently value life. It also made me think about where we are going and if we exceeded the limits of our moral duty? For me, caring for brain dead and severely handicapped people is an open issue that deserves discussion. This is a quality of life issue; it’s a moral issue and it’s also a survival issue for our society. When resources that could extend life to those who have a practical chance for a productive life are diverted to those who don’t we should be able to rationally discuss it without going ballistic. In short, we should never be afraid to discuss the tough moral issues.
In the early days when we lived in caves and hunted wooly mammoths, survival of the fittest culled our numbers so that only the most fit survived to create the next generation. Scant resources would go to those who were most likely to contribute to the security and preservation of their clan. And so it was for many eons the most intelligent, the most fit. . . survived.
Those who couldn’t compete, who couldn’t contribute and who couldn’t ensure the survival of the clan perished. In our human time-line this early demise included whole classifications of hominoids. For instance, Homo sapiens neandertalensis (Neanderthal man) went extinct and we think it was most likely because they couldn’t compete with the brainpower of our direct ancestor homo erectus. He was the skilled hunter who evolved into our current form of Homo sapiens.
Today we support literally millions of our fellow humans who would have otherwise met an early death. As a result we have a higher rate of birth defects and mental illness than ever before in our human time line. Vast resources are spent to insure their survival and growth while those at the top of our intellectual evolution, those who contribute greatly to the advancement of society, are actually shrinking in numbers. In a sense we’ve reversed the course of natural evolution by unnatural means, and the effect on society as a whole has been to our detriment.
We’ve always had to struggle with man’s inhumanity towards man. We’re moved to value and respect human life, yet wars and killing still continue as much as ever. The controversy of what is and is not acceptable to do in our defense and preservation as a good society is as old as time. This dilemma can be found in the ancient writings of our earliest religions. And the question remains, do we as a society kill the killers? Can we really do that and be called an evolved society? Can we as a moral people ever justify the waging of war when war is not being waged against us? There are many questions that remain when it comes to how we value and respect life.
I’m not sure the answers to that can be found in any current religion. The religions I’ve studied all have contradictions regarding when it is appropriate to take a human life. Therefore it gets confusing, and competing religious morals are almost self cancelling at times. So where do we turn for the right answers for us right now?
What if we resorted to pure logic as our religion? What would life be like then? You know that logic is a lot like nature in the sense that it does not embrace the weak and disabled. So, if we operated as a society based on pure logic, we would probably put to death a good portion of our society. For instance, all those with severe mental disabilities – dead; all those with a penchant for violence against society – dead; all those who are economic predators preying on society to advance their greed – dead; sexual deviates, rapists, child molesters, – dead; illicit drug dealers, career criminals that infect society like a cancer and retard our productivity – dead, dead, dead. And so it would go, a culling of the herd as it were, . . .in a purely logical society.
Would you be happier and safer living in a logical society or a society that respects life so much that it does not kill anyone for anything? This would be a society that would eagerly sacrifice it’s finite resources away from enhancing the lives of the fully functioning to keeping alive those who are barely functioning or those who are defiant, maniacal predators that must be kept at bay at enormous cost? Or some variation of the logic society and the 100% pro life society?
Where would you draw the line? Would the severely mentally disabled or extremely infirm elderly be put to a death through lethal injection as a logical mercy killing? Would the most violent criminals or sexual predators be quickly executed, or would your society try to show them compassion, understanding, and try to rehabilitate them?
Where would you draw the line?
Where do you see your society surviving and thriving to its fullest?
I’m gonna get in big trouble for this … but just how, exactly, do you think little Trig Palen is going to end his life?
You can’t have it both ways, people.
I didn’t see Jack trying to have anything both ways here Libby. He was asking questions to start a conversation on a touchy subject. You let your OPD control your response before thinking (Obsessive Palin Disorder).
Could we get just one response from a lefty that doesn’t obsess about Sarah Palin?
Thanks Steve and you’re quite right, I’m just asking the questions that few of us wish to answer.
This huge moral delimma is raised in a new movie about cave explorers who get trapped. It’s called Sanctum. It’s in 3-D and its an amazing thriller worth seeing, except for one thing. . . about 20% of us have claustrophobia and it’s so real we can’t bear to watch it. I saw two people head out shortly after the movie started – they couldn’t handle it. It made me feel queasy too, but I made it through and I am glad I did.
I’m having trouble seeing the connection between cave explorers and your thoughts about the severely disabled in our society and how we care for them.
I had a friend with a daughter who had a rare disease in addition to being mentally defficient. The disease made her very strong and difficult to handle as she grew older. Her parents kept her at home as long as they could and then lost everything as they struggled to pay for care for her. I Have to give them credit they worked hard and recovered from near bankruptcy three times before she died. But for them, she wasn’t a stranger. She was their daughter, they loved her and they couldn’t see turning her over to a state run fascility.
This is a very tough problem. I don’t think it’s up to me to decide when a life has value. It may be that the challenges these people present are for our own “pruning”. Surely we can find a way to love and care for “the least of these” in a humane and compassionate way.
I’m not comfortable at all with a state managed system of “removal” in part because I don’t trust what government bureaucrats might decide is the expendability factor. I’m also not comfortable with government funding of “warehouse” facilities.
This would be a good place for private charitable investment offering an incredible gift and service to the families affected.
I haven’t seen that movie yet Jack. But I’m guessing they had an example of one being sacrificed to save the rest. I get the utilitarian principle that many shouldn’t suffer just to accomodate a few, but we need to separate just who those few are.
For argument’s sake let’s remove criminals and the murderously deranged first. They have no redeeming value to society. We pay a pretty hefty pricetag keeping this dead weight alive in our prison systems now.
In the case of the developmentally disabled, there is a value I think we all hold on being a compassionate society. However, it is hard to care for those who truly need it when there are so many flat-out con artists milking the system. We’ve mentioned the numbers here before: California has 12% of our nation’s population, but we shoulder 30% of our nation’s welfare burden. Other states are getting away with not paying their fair share while we pay for those who choose not to work. If we were to limit welfare benefits and put clever restrictions like drug tests for recipients, it would help alleviate our system costs.
The other day I saw no less than 6 trucks at a Caltrans worksite, with maybe 8 guys “working” (more like one or two actually doing something) on site. How many state agencies like this are draining resources that could go to help the developmentally disabled? Are we so callous a society that union labor is worth more than the children?
I could go on and on, but I think priorities need to be addressed. If we do that and still find ourselves stuck in the either/or hypothetical debate you present, I guess then we can decide how bad it has to be. Right now I don’t think we have to go there.
Steve, if we were ever going to try an experiment, then I totally agree with starting with the killers and criminally insane that pose a great threat to us. It doesn’t seem right that some poor people are denied desperately needed education and in some cases life saving medical operations when they’ve done no wrong and a murderer gets the best healthcare possible at a cost of incarceration that runs between $90-$110,000 a year. Wack em and give that cash to those who deserve a break.
Steve, I forgot to mention that I liked your idea of putting more pressure on the able bodied welfare types to find a job or move out of Calif. We’ve got enough bums on welfare and many of them are there illegally which is insult to injury. Look at all those welfare credit cards that get used as strange places like Vegas casinos.
Ah, the guys … all to willing to muck-rake. But confront them with reality … and it’s off to their 3-D Sanctum.
Sigh.