“Uniting Healthcare with Holiness to Relieve Suffering”
Recently, I saw a news story regarding the Actress, Anna Kendrick, and her relationship struggles. She provided the following quote to People magazine, “I was with someone — this was somebody I lived with, for all intents and purposes my husband.
The other night, I was watching “Bob’s Burgers” on one of the cable channels (I forget which one), when a remarkable commercial came on. “Bob’s Burgers” is an adult-oriented cartoon about a struggling proprietor of a hamburger restaurant and his eccentric family. It is quite clever, actually, and entertaining, without being too offensive. So, as I was watching this cartoon (around 8 PM, Central) a pharmaceutical commercial came on for a drug named “Apretude”. Even in the bizarre world of pharmaceutical-to-consumer advertising, this commercial reached a new and disturbing low.
While we try to avoid a lot of political discussions in this venue, sometimes it can’t be helped. In a bizarre illustration of the circus that is the US Congress, last week Republicans in the US House of Representatives passed the “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act”.
One of the criticisms often levied against me, and others of my philosophical bent, is that we excessively use analogies between medical ethical issues and Nazi Germany. Conventional wisdom is that the holocaust should be The Holocaust, an event unique in human history...If only it were true.
Most people want to be seen as fair, rational and tolerant of others' beliefs and perspectives. There is also a desire to be diplomatic and avoid offending those who differ in opinion from us.
