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9.21.2004
Morality and Medicine
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My silence here during the past week was due not to any burst of reticence but to a medical emergency. (You know the old spiritual Dry Bones? If one falls the wrong way, the part about the leg bone connected to the knee bone needs revision.)
Such an event evokes strong thoughts of my extraordinary luck in being born a 21st Century American, where access to suburb medical care makes it a temporary inconvenience rather than a personal tragedy.
It also raises thoughts of the moral obligation incumbent on those of us who received this gift of fortune to do everything possible to spread the benefits of such care around the world.
But in the halls of PFF this does not lead to any gooey Kumbaya stuff, nor to some new idea for a UN program. Instead, it leads to renewed dedication to institutions of property rights and markets that can harness the best in human thought and effort, and to renewed opposition to the mad abstractionists and demagogues who would destroy such industries as pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, or health care provision in the name of some academic theory or personal advantage.
posted by James DeLong : 9/21/2004 02:46:55 PM
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