A bankruptcy of conscience

What strikes me as amazing, and perhaps it shouldn't given the events of the past few years, are stories such as the one I have posted that show the sheer callousness of the American heart. This particular story is about health care or perhaps lack thereof. I recall mentioning my horror upon reading this story and listening to some of the audio coverage of the 911 calls and the response of my co-workers. My co-workers said, "People die at hospitals all the time, why is this so surprising?" As I heard that I thought to myself, "Do people really go to a hospital to die on purpose?"

On so many issues I feel as if the country has lost its way. This story falls int he background of what some refer to as the health care crisis (and perhaps that is putting it mildly) currently going on in the US. In this instance the victim, a Hispanic woman who upon experiencing internal pains went to a hospital emergency room but could find no one willing to help her. Upon collapsing and vomiting blood on the floor, both her husband and a nearby onlooker phone 911 to try and get an ambulance to take her to a hospital that will help her. In neither case was the operator able to offer any assistance and as a consequence the woman died. She was a former drug addict, a former patient of the hospital and someone those at the hospital seemed to consider more of an annoyance than a person. But being all of those things still shouldn't dismiss her fundamental right to live, should it?

Dying on the floor of an emergency room when it is was entirely possible and likely that medical intervention would have been life-saving strikes me as perhaps one of the worst cases of this bankruptcy of conscience. By this I refer to the notion that many in America view situations such as these as, "too bad" or "that's really unfortunate." I have heard so many religious advocates screaming for rescinding of abortion rights yet in this case I haven't heard the same outrage over an adult woman's death. I have watched the scenes of brave soldiers die month after month in Iraq. The indifference towards human life is a serious problem of conscience. We are charged morally with solving this problem and yet we seem unable to push forward.

No doubt many of the decisions our country has made, particularly over the past 6 years, have been poor ones - we are all bound by the truth that we are in this together no matter where we stand politically or ideologically. As I make my decision about who I think would make a good President in 2008, I hope that anyone reading this will consider looking for that candidate who has the willingness to start paying back our debts - not just those financial ones, but the ones we have incurred as a result of our own indifference.

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