Good grief! A woman underwent the most extreme surgery imaginable to be cured from cancer. She was literally cut apart. From the story:
A Canadian woman is the first patient to undergo an operation in which doctors cut her body in half to remove a tumor—and survive. Janis Ollson, 31, was pregnant with her second child and doctors assumed her intense back pain was just a typical symptom of pregnancy. But it wasn’t long until she was diagnosed with bone cancer that was untreatable by chemotherapy or radiation, The Winnipeg Free Press reported. The Manitoba mother was told by experts in Toronto they would have to cut her body in half by removing her leg, lower spine and half of her pelvis—a surgery that had only been performed on cadavers, which meant successfully putting her back together again was a huge risk.
This story reveals the awesome power of the human will to live. But I bring it up because it raises an interesting question. Assuming it wasn’t experimental, which isn’t paid for by insurance or government benefits, would the surgery be permitted in a rationed milieu? It had to be breathtakingly expensive. If the answer is no, it proves the “death panel” nature of rationing. If the answer is yes because she is a young mother, but no if the patient was, say, 60, it proves the discriminatory nature of rationing. If the answer is yes, then perhaps rationing would never be really accepted, which is my position.
What say you?
