The Shark Who Ate the World

okay my blog is not really about sharks, although Jaws was on the other night and I watched it and now, when I night swim , it plays on my mind DOH.   Its so dated and unrealistic but I guess that is the power of film.

My blog really should be entitled Ethics 101 as I have an interesting question to put to you all. 

  ... but before I ask it, I have to give a virtual chocolate fish to italiano for leaving my 1000th comment.  Chocolate fish are a NZ candy - about 10cm, long marshmallow coated in chocoate and shaped like a fish, often used as a prize for small adhoc competitions amoung friends and work colleagues. (this one is flasher than most)

okay now for my question.....   (drum roll please)

I was watching 60 minutes the other night on telly and the segment was about this family whose daughter had been stabbed to death by her ex partner - nothing out of the ordinary about that (UNFORTUNATELY) - her new boyfriend was also stabbed to death, her borther in law was stabbed but survived and of course this followed an abusive five year relationship that ended a few months prior with the killer.

Now I am not a supporter of the death penalty, in my view, a civilised society does not lower itself to the lowest common denominator when dealing with violent individuals, no matter how heinous their crime.  The cost of locking them away for life (which in NZ sometimes isn't very long) is the price we must pay.  

There was a line in LOTRs that sums it up for me ...  "...He deserves death." "Deserves, I daresay he does.  Many that live deserve death.   And some that die deserve life.  Can you give it them?  Then not be too eager to deal out death in judgement."

Now all that said, the killer of these two people is in jail where he should be.  He has been diagnosed with leukemia and it will cost a $1 million dollar bone marrow transplant to save him.  The family of the murdered girl are totally against him getting this treatment, and to some point I entirely understand, its one thing for the state to take his life but if god/fate/destiny/karma/whatever steps in well that is another matter.  Now I'm not advocating no treatment, they could give him pain relief what ever in the prison infirmary to make him comfortable.

But then I also have real issues about making value judgements on who deserves medical treatment and who doesn't, if we say no life saving treatment for violent killers, who decides how violent is violent, or what crime is serious enough - its a slipperly slope, if we start with holding medical treatment for killers will there be a section of society who clamours to bring in measures for the old/young, rich/poor etc.... 

Is denying someone medical treatment essentially the same as the death penalty?

Now it actually turns out his condition has improved and he has been taken off the waiting list for the treatment.  But I still don't know how I feel about this, what would you do?

Just so you know, I'm talking about real people, this is not hypothetical -  this is the father (of the girl)  and this is the person who killled her and who now has leukemia.

if you want to see the full story - http://www.tv3.co.nz/TVShows/NewsandCurrentAffairs/60Minutes/60MinutesVideo/tabid/132/articleID/32036/cat/46/Default.aspx