Bioethics, healthcare policy, and related issues.
Saw a couple of offbeat movies recently, one pretty good, one very bad. Both had doctors in them, and they got me thinking about doctoring and what we want it to be.
What happens, f’rinstance, if your doctor’s a mobbed-up, drug-using, drug-pushing, fairly psychotic lowlife with sybaritic sexual tastes who doesn’t really mind seeing you die?
The New York Times hits the right note, almost in passing, in today’s article on the difficulties working-class women face in breastfeeding due to opposition from employers. Women are more and more pressured to breastfeed (witness the Times’s own notorious article - titled “Breast-Feed or Else” - virtually accusing them of child abuse if they do not), but those with fewest choices economically have the hardest time doing so, especially because employers, while sometimes paying lip service to woman-friendly policies, prohibit women from doing what is necessary to keep their kids in best health.
