[MD] How far do you go to preserve individual life?

[Krimel]

[Platt]
DA: I mean, what are we to do with the NHS? How can you put a value in
pounds, 
shillings and pence on an individual life? There was a case with a bowel
cancer 
drug -- if you gave that drug, which costs several thousand pounds, it 
continued life for six weeks on. How can you make that decision?"

How would the MOQ make that decision? There's no direct answer that I can
find 
in Pirsig's writings. I presume that if the patient was of sound mind and,
from 
his past history, could potentially offer something of intellectual value 
during the remaining six or so weeks of his life, he should receive the
drug. 
Otherwise, the social value of his life would rule which, as the Giant would

judge, isn't worth a pence. Biologically the poor soul would be best
recycled.

What's really horrendous about the question is that in the NHS and now 
potentially in the U.S. such questions are all too real with life and death 
decisions in the hands of a government committee, i.e., a death panel. I
don't 
know about you, but the thought of my government determining whether I live
or 
die makes me sick. It's as if Joe Stalin was resurrected.

When you surrender such personal decisions to the government, not only is
your 
life threatened, but DQ, the creative force of evolution, dies, too.
Perhaps, 
the MOQ answer is just that -- take responsibility for your own life so DQ
can 
flourish.   

[Krimel]
Odd, question. Has it occurred to you that these kinds of decisions until
recently have been relegated to the private sector where the decision was
left in the hands of those who stand to profit directly from withholding
such treatments. You really think that giving the power of life and death to
private corporations is "moral" in any sense of the term?

At least the government is set up to act in the public interest and is
accountable to the people. Neither is true of the private sector, in fact
quite the reverse is true there.