You have the magical power to stop one and only one of the following two scenarios. Which would you prevent?
1. A child dies of cancer after the parents refuse medical treatment for religious reasons.
2. A child dies of cancer after prolonged and difficult medical treatments fail.
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3 comments:
Since everything else is the same, I prevent #2. I would rather see science "succeed" (although it's actually my divine intervention) than religion.
Argh. This is a tough one. Number 1 is a bad situation. Being religious I hate to see people who believe that God will save them when they won't work towards saving themselves. There is a reason we have medical advances. God doesn't forbid us from using it. So this whole I know God will do whatever to save me is a crock. But why should the child suffer because the parents are idiots?
But on the other hand a parent who does everything possible to save a child should be rewarded (I don't know if that is the best term but it's the best I could think of) for their trying and sacrificing to help the child.
So with that said I think #2 is the one to be saved. I can't in good conscience reward the parents that are idiots. If you can't help your own child than who can you help. They will go on thinking that they were right for ignoring medical treatment.
If the children in question are still going to have the same forms of cancer they had to begin with, and I'm just preventing the parents' actions, I'd prevent #1. My reasoning is that the child in scenario 1 may very well have a curable form of cancer and so would not have died if treated. Otoh, if my magical intervention is going to take away their cancer as well (I'm assuming child 2 has an incurable kind, since all treatments failed), then I would prevent #2.
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