Mercy? Murder?

Mary Kill People (Miniseries; 2017-19)
S1-S3; E1-E6

In 1967, surrounding the abortion debate, psychologists came up with a moral question, the trolley dilemma. It involved a speeding train about to hit five people working on the track. You are given a switch to divert the train onto another track. Unfortunately, it would involve hitting and killing one person. The question was, would you sacrifice one life in place of five. People found it easier to kill one as it is better in the greater scheme of things.

Over the years, the dilemma scenario was expanded. One involved the interviewee being allowed to push a fat man before the train to dampen its speed. People refused to agree to pushing someone personally, i.e. killing someone, to save lives. The consensus was unanimous - no killing. We have been hardwired to treat life as something so sacrosanct that we have no business ending it.

No matter how bad a convicted has been in real life, the general public, at least, refuses to be the one who would condemn another person to death. What if, despite all the advancements in forensic sciences, the public inadvertently sends an innocent person to the gallows/electric chair/lethargic injection/ firing squad. It is not that such things are not happening.

Let us turn to people who are genuinely in a near-death situation. Maybe they are afflicted with a terminally ill disease where all treatment modalities have failed and are spending their time in their few days or months of painful life. What if all cognitive faculties have failed and are left with a vegetative body kept alive, electrophysical only, by machines until the plug is pulled. 

Is it justified to insist that life is so sacrosanct that only the Giver had the right to take back what He gave, not mere mortals? Does easing the pain not include ending the very life that is inevitably coming to an end, albeit so ever slowly? 

Increasingly, more societies are asking these tough questions. The answers are more straightforward if theology is put aside and objectively argued with tangible facts and figures. In this time and age, as society has to deal with the longevity of its citizens and the costs of fighting aggressively near-fatal situations, resources could be set aside for the living and those worth saving. Or is every life worth saving, old, young, poor, rich, elite and pauper?

This miniseries does not ask or answer these questions directly or indirectly. It tells of a team of a nurse and doctors who identify patients who are terminally ill and seek relief from their sufferings. As euthanasia is illegal worldwide, this team offers a hush-hush discrete service for a fee. Their preferred choice of poison is liquid thiopental mixed with champagne. They hope their sympathetic act will go unnoticed as the victims are dying anyway. Unfortunately, sometimes, things do not work out as planned, and they encounter unexpected hurdles and failed attempts. To top it all, a police team is hot on their trail, eager to catch them in the act.

The medical dictum dictates 'primum non nocere' - first, do no harm. Are we causing harm or alleviating pain by offering medically assisted suicide after a comprehensive, multipronged assessment by medical and psychological experts?

The Utilitarianism school of thought would believe that killing one to save five is appropriate for the greater good. Deontological ethics dictate that ethical actions follow universal law. Wilfully killing someone is wrong. Period.

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Playing God?

In times of tranquillity when your life is charted nicely in front you, you can talk. You would say, this is how one should do things, what is right, what is wrong, what is kosher, what is just and what is humane. The real test of humanity comes when civilisation is on the brink of collapse when law and order are in shambles.

At times of emergency when the social order collapses and everyone is hanging on to their dear lives on a thread, decency, common courtesy and even humanity is a misfit. Does it really? Or is it the place where humanity is put to the acid test?

Heard over a podcast about an incidence at a hospital during the time Hurrican Katrina hit New Orleans. The medical staff thought they were well prepared to handle the crisis, but they soon realised that panic button was hit when the levee broke on the second day. The hospital was flooded and by the third day, power supply was disconnected after the water reached the crucial areas. Mishandling of rescue services saw patients and medical providers stuck with very sick patients and depletion of backup power supply to sustain life. The worse hit were the chronically ill and the ones needing life support. Oxygen supply came to a halt, and the staff had the unenviable task of triaging who deserved the much-needed elixir of life- oxygen. They also had to decide who deserved to be saved first when helicopters eventually arrived. As transporting patients to the helipad on the top floor without elevators was a challenge, morbidly obese patients had to be left behind. Sanitation was a problem; toilets were non-functional.

Many of the patients on life support were literally breathless and dying. Very ill patients were in misery, knowing that they would be left behind due to space constraint in the rescue vessels. Some terminally ill patients were quite miserable. It was in this instance that someone thought of and perhaps administered drugs to the effect of relieving them of their miseries. In other words, maybe higher than usual doses of analgesic in the form opioids were given which proved fatal.

When the dust finally settled on the aftermath of the Katrina brouhaha, an investigation was initiated to determine any mala fide. Even though nobody was convicted, it did, however, spur discussions on the difficult decisions that the health personnel have to endure in their daily workplace and emergency situations, what more in a war zone.

 http://www.radiolab.org/story/playing-god/