It’s Really Quite Simple: Do We Value Each Life in America?

[raccoon]

Published on Thursday, March 18, 2010 by CommonDreams.org

by Donna Smith

The question is straightforward and simple. Do we value each life? Yes or no.

No matter what Congress passes or doesn't pass, no matter what the President signs, no matter who buys insurance or has a subsidy to buy it, no matter which person is on Medicaid or Medicare or in the VA system or the Indian Health Service system, we need to answer that question for ourselves and future generations.

Do we value each life? If not, then what are the criteria by which we make our determinations? Clean and clear. How do we decide? Is there some sort of unspoken master race or master class we value more highly? By birth? By religious affiliation? By social strata?

De we value each life? If our answer is no, then we will keep reading reports like the one in the New York Times yesterday about Carol Y. Vliet in Flint, MI. We do not value her life. The brutality of what we are doing to one another is mind-numbing.

"FLINT, Mich. - Carol Y. Vliet's cancer returned with a fury last summer, the tumors metastasizing to her brain, liver, kidneys and throat. ..

Dr. Sahouri informed her a few months later that he could no longer see her because, like a growing number of doctors, he had stopped taking patients with Medicaid . .. ‘My office manager was telling me to do this for a long time, and I resisted,' Dr. Sahouri said. ‘But after a while you realize that we're really losing money on seeing those patients, not even breaking even. We were starting to lose more and more money, month after month.'

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/18-0

[ananda]

1. Some value all life, many don't.

I think it will take a whole shift in consciousness to
deal with and change the ugly realities spawned by
sociopathic corporatism and mechanism.

[MineralMan]

2. Well, the right only values life before people are born.

Others only value life that pays them something.

So, the answer is pretty much no, I'm afraid.

I wish it were otherwise.

[stray cat]

3. And how much are you willing to sacrifice of your own income for your neighbor

[Zoeisright]

5. What exactly do you mean by that?

Are you unwilling to pay a little bit more to save someone else's life?

[Zoeisright]

4. No.

Most people only value their own lives.

And repukes care about nothing except their own tiny little greedy selves.

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. Actually, I thought is was not legal for a Dr. to abandon a patient.

But then, I am old.
Wonder when that changed?

[ixion]

7. culturally? Nope.

We don't value any life beyond those people we know, for the most part.

[groovedaddy]

8. As a society, no, we don't. There are many individuals and organizations who do. Capitalism

as a system, does not and it is the driving force of our society and government.

[The2ndWheel]

9. Only insofar as we have to

[reggie the dog]

10. no, in general americans do not value human life or the lives of others