Mercy Killing in New Orleans?
Yesterday Heath gave me a little grief for posting something flippant about the paranormal (which apparently noone understood) rather than dealing with the serious down in New Orleans - "How come you haven't written about why God would cause such a thing?"
Good question. The short answer is - it takes time to write something thoughtful, and I haven't had much of either recently (time or thoughts). The longer answer is - does anyone actually care? I haven't run into too many people actually wringing their hands on this one, but maybe that's just me not getting out enough.
At any rate, here's something for Heath, and hopefully it will get all our attention: according to this article in the UK, doctors in New Orleans actually killed patients rather than evacuate them:
Doctors working in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans killed critically ill patients rather than leaving them to die in agony as they evacuated hospitals... With gangs of rapists and looters rampaging through wards in the flooded city, senior doctors took the harrowing decision to give massive overdoses of morphine to those they believed could not make it out alive.Couple of thoughts. First, I don't actually know if it's true (can anyone confirm?). Second, I'm very curious to hear what other people think when they read this - does it really bother you? or does it hardly give you pause? Is this an instance of compassion? Or does it go beyond the pale? How does the Bible speak to something like this?
I'd encourage you to read the article for yourself, and then share your thoughts (Heath - you better pipe up here!). I'll post my own ideas a little later, but I want to reflect a bit more before I tip my hand. Until then, the ball's in your court - mercy killing or murder? You tell me...
(Hat tip: James)
posted by Pilgrim in Progress @ 7:01 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
My reason for pressing the issue to begin with was that there are the questions of "Where was God in this?" or "How could God allow this to happen?" showing up in the mainstream news. This is in popular media like Time magazine: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1105669,00.html
and it has been on the big tv networks as part of "dateline specials" and the like. So yes I have seen this all over the popular media.
As for the doctors actions...I will have to get back to you on this when I have a clear idea of my thought reguarding the situation.
I'm tempted to make a wise crack about actually tuning into the main stream media, but I'll refrain :-)
The media is actually a pretty good barometer for what people are thinking, because media folks are in the business of market share and you can pretty much bet they wouldn't be running it if they didn't think there was an audience for it.
At the same time, news media in particular do seem to get it wrong many times (they seem to take themselves a little too seriously at times, and be a little to attached to their own particular agendas).
Advertising, however, is another story - these guys are all about the money, and are much more willing to reflect what people are thinking without interjecting their own personal spin. If you REALLY want to see where peoples hearts and minds are, watch the _ads_ in the media, rather than the media itself.
The ad guys are in the business of making money by knowing where people are at (whereas the news guys are in the business of making money by looking unbiased in the presentation of "the news").
At any rate, I digress severerly. :-)
So have you (or any other readers) actually run into any REAL people that are wringing their hands over this? I'm just curious...
I'm still sorting through my thoughts - should have time to post something this evening if all goes well.
"How come you haven't written about why God would cause such a thing?"
As for this question - Tim Keller has a great answer on the Redeemer web site www.redeemer2.com in response to 9/11. Which also applys to NO
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