Currently I’m watching Grey’s Anatomy, which I haven’t for a long time. It is as you probably know an American TV show about a group of doctors in a hospital in Seattle, and in the episode I’m currently watching they have to treat a man who is on Death Row and it’s really very interesting to see the different ways they approach this, and the different ideological positions the various characters occupy.
I mean, honestly, how do you treat a man in hospital when you know he’s lined up to be killed at some point in the next few years and has probably done something terrible? Myself, like one of the characters, I wouldn’t be able to think about him as a criminal but only as someone in pain and in need of help I could give, I think. Other characters took up the position that he was a terrible person and therefore when he was asking for more painkillers they were less likely to hand them over because he could go without them and still survive, and didn’t deserve that medication. I don’t understand that.
Frankly I don’t understand the death penalty either, being a pretty run-of-the-mill liberal Brit, but if this show is anything to go by, that and what little cultural knowledge I have about America, not a small proportion of Americans across all of society would agree that that man deserves to be killed for what he did, and that he doesn’t deserve to be treated like a human being because all he deserves is to die.
I just don’t understand. Do you?
Not entirely related to the hospital context you mention here but 100% worth watching nonetheless for the death penalty debate is ‘The Life of David Gale’ with Kevin Spacey.
Ah, yes. That debate. I’ve blogged about it in the past, too – and I agree with Lucy, the film is great, and well worth watching. As for your question, Jenny – I’d like to believe I wouldn’t treat a person any less if they were to on death roll. After all, if one takes that attitude, doctors might as well not treat anyone, seeing as we’re all going to die someday, anyway.
But I’m not 100% positive I would have the same attitude if put on the spot.
Hmmm, yes Mia. Likewise.
And I can see instances where the situation might be less black and white. For instance, what if you have a choice to make between saving the death row prisoner and saving a frail, elderly cancer patient?
I hope hope hope I’d take the decision without basing it on who was morally more ‘deserving’ – I’m assuming the frail elderly cancer patient is more than likely not to survive for long anyway and that the palliative route is more or less a given there, whereas saving the life of hte Death Row patient was a real possibility at least for now, increasing what quality of life they did have. I don’t know. The more I think about it hte harder it gets.