Life as an Extreme Sport

Month: October 2006

wide reflective equilibrium and HIV testing recommendations

2006 (NY), Academics, University at Albany

I spent a few hours this evening reading, and writing up a rough proposal for a paper due soon. This is that proposal,…

Thanks so much for the recommendation of Norman Daniels. I’m not sure how
I’ve not come across him so far, but I’ve picked up both “Seeking Fair
Treatment: From the AIDS Epidemic to National Health Care Reform” and
“Justice and Justification: Reflective Equilibrium In Theory and Practice”
and they’ve helped crystalize a lot of the more abstract nature of Rawls
for me.

For the first paper topic, as we already briefly discussed, I would like
to do an applied analysis of the new CDC HIV testing guidelines. While
there are several major changes in the new recommendation guidelines, what
I am specifically interested in discussing is, I suppose, the fairness or
justness of testing adolescents, particularly those in the 13-18 year old
age range. Limiting my scope to New York State law, the basic problem is
this: an adolescent can consent to HIV testing, and notification laws do
not require that the parents of an adolescent be contacted if the minor is
seropositive. However, a minor cannot consent to HIV treatment, parental
approval must be sought. While family planning clinics can offer HIV
testing, the only treatment they are allowed to provide to a minor is that
relating to family planning – that is, to provide birth control services,
abortion access, and STI testing and medical treatment for that which can
be cured.

The problem, then, becomes a conflict of several interests: the social
obligation to protect those who’re seronegative, the social obligation to
protect the privacy of adolescent sexual lives, and creating a situation
of conflicting interests for health providers, who cannot protect the
privacy of seropositive teenagers and treat them for the disease.

I think that the best way to look at this is simply utilizing Rawls’ wide
reflective equilibrium, basically testing various aspects of the moral
beliefs we hold against one another. Can we use a fair procedure to select
among the various moral beliefs/princinples that are coming in to
conflict, and reach some principled conclusion (whether it agrees or
disagrees with the CDC recommendations)? Daniels provides a framework for
how to approach this, without specifically addressing the issue of opt-out
HIV testing.

I have a feeling that will give me more than enough material for the
suggested length of this particular paper, especially if I follow Rawls
model of showing how his theory differs from what utilitarianism would
demand (and in this case, the utilitarian answer is crystal clear –
interestingly, I’m not entirely certain what the Rawlsian answer will be).

So, I think that’s my topic proposal. Please let me know where you think I
should go with it, or any modifications I should make.

Limbaugh Goes Too Far – Again

...and everything else, Bioethics

The AJOB blog links to a Crooks & Liars post about Rush Limbaugh accusing Michael J. Fox of lying, and/or acting, in his recent advert supporting a Democrat in Missouri’s November election bid. For those of you who haven’t seen the advertisement (which can be found by following links, as I’m still too lazy to figure out embedding YouTube in this thang), it’s a short but powerful advertisement talking about the potential power of stem cell research. It’s the Parkinson’s that makes the advert hard to watch.

Now, I will admit that I’ve heard the rumour/discussion that Fox doesn’t take medication for his Parkinson’s, and this has been widely repeated since the advert started airing – the suggestion is that he doesn’t typically take the meds, so he looks worse than he is. There are, however, two issues at fault with this supposed logic. The first is simply: why would it be a falsity if he chooses to show people what the disease looks like when it’s not medicated? What is untruthful about that? That would be accurate in showing the ravages of Parkinson’s. Medications, as anyone who has to take chronic maintenance medications knows, come with side effects. Personally, it seems to run a 1/1 ratio for me – for every pill I take to control my chronic pain, I have to take another to combat side effects. The side effects are not pleasant, and I do often take a drug holiday if I know I don’t need to be terrifically functional, because for all the pain that comes from a drug holiday, I’m just experiencing that, and not the stacked effects wreaking havoc. Perhaps you have to be in a maintenance situation yourself, but it doesn’t sound insane to avoid medications because you hate the side effects. Nor does it seem like lying – in fact, I’d argue that the polite fiction is that a disease or illness isn’t “so bad” because it’s effects are being masked by prescriptions.

I suppose that ended up being both problems: what does it matter if he takes his medications or not, and why would it be “false advertising” if he didn’t. On top of that, though, there’s also the consideration mentioned in the Crooks & Liars post: the movements seen in Fox’s advert are because of his medications, not a lack of.

That Limbaugh would accuse Fox of acting “because he’s an actor” is just reprehensible. Certainly, Fox might continue to identify as an actor, and act when he can – but he retired from that years ago because the Parkinson’s no longer allowed him to do the job.

Dove Zombies

...and everything else, life and living

I’m a bit behind in my blogdom the last few days, for which I apologize. I have things to reply to, things to read, other things to post – my excuse is cloudy lungs. (I’ve had pretty persistent bronchitis for the past month, and there’s some concern I’ve managed to go get myself pneumonia. Again.) Where a week ago I was hiking up and down stairs rapidly and with glee, today, I can’t get from couch to kitchen without serious breathing issues.

The life of a severe asthmatic. I’ll spare you my bitching about the smallness of Albany, which means it takes two plus months to get in to see a specialist (there just aren’t that many). I suspect I’ll do the whole “not breathing in the ER to get their attention” trick that worked so well for me the last time.

Anyhow! Digressing. The point of this isn’t to whine, the point is to save myself typing and YouTube linking, and say instead, “go read Jentery’s latest post. It’s all about the Dove beauty campaign, real beauty, and zombies. And then I dovetail (heh) us into phenomenology, and the decomposition of language.

It reminds me of everything I miss about CHID – people wondering why zombies aren’t used to better effect for the representation of the real, and no one blinks twice, but instead thoughtfully considers the option before replying. People here would look at me oddly for even trying. (For example, the looks I got this afternoon when I explained why faith and science aren’t the same things, and it’s possible for someone who’s religious to be scientifically agnostic… well, I gave up quickly and went back to reading CDC data on the new HIV testing recommendations.)

Anyways, why are you still reading this? Go read Jentery, not me!