So you’re saying you can’t say why she deserves it more than some other person’s family member? Is it the appeal to emotion from the article, that she wishes she could be a singer, which is so apropos of her needing the lung transplant? What if the person whose place she takes is also a singer, and not just an aspiring one but a genuine trained operatic performer? What if the other person is your track-star cousin? Don’t they deserve the same consideration?
You’re trying to make it seem heartless that anyone would ever dare deny this girl, but you fail to acknowledge that with organ transplants particularly this is a zero-sum game. For her to get a spot on the adult list means someone else has to wait longer, even though this girl might be a less suitable transplant candidate. I don’t blame the parents for trying everything, and in their position I would do the same, but as an uninvolved party, I acknowledge that emotional appeals aren’t the best grounds for basing the decision. Further, my original point was that the grounds for the decision are not the main issue; the main issue is that Sebelius is not the right person to be making this decision for several reasons: she’s not medically qualified to truly understand the implications (and might even be contributing to false hope on the parents’ part), but that as a bureaucrat and a member of a now-known-biased administration she’s the last person who should *ever* get to decide who does and doesn’t qualify for life-saving surgery.
There’s no doubt you’re giving this issue thoughtful consideration, but I suggest letting go of the limits you believe exist.
FRegards, Little Pig.
There are two separate issues that need to be distinguished from each other. One issue is whether it is ok to get an exception made to a good rule, and the other is whether it is ok to challenge a bad rule. You can’t judge the situation and distinguish between the two cases, unless you are willing to actually evaluate the specific rule.
There used to be rules saying there had to be separate blood banks for black people and white people. It was eventually decided by the courts, after expert testimony, that this rule was not actually necessary and it was causing harm due to the lost opportunities for matching donors to recipients, and discriminating illegally.
Now there is a rule saying there have to be separate organ banks for adults and children, and it is claimed that this rule is also not actually necessary and causes harm due to the lost opportunities for matching donors to recipients, and discriminating illegally.
These situations are exactly parallel structurally. That doesn’t mean they must reach the same result, because the medical facts may be different enough to change the result, but there is just as much moral right to challenge the rule in court as there was to challenge the old rule about separate blood banks.