Disasters change lives permanently, and even when the disasters are natural, there are always implications for how humans have built their foundations and communities that influence the outcome of these disasters.
At last Wednesday’s REF (Residential Education Faculty Fellows) event “Social and Ethical Implications in the Aftermath of Disaster,” a small gathering of people discussed the issues.
Professor Stock, the chair of the History Department and Director of the American Studies program, discussed a few major disasters in history, pointing to similarities in the drastic social effects of each. Political and religious reorganization are commonplace in communities hit by disaster, and that part of history seems to repeat itself regularly.
Professor Turner, a professor in the Philosophy Department, had a slightly different angle. His interests centered on the ethical issues that arise during disasters and their aftermath. One of the examples he discussed was a series of events that occurred in the Memorial Hospital of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
There were a great deal of patients in the hospital, and limited resources to keep them all alive for the uncertain period of time until their evacuation. When the helicopters did begin to arrive, key doctors made the decision to put those with ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ issues on the lowest priority for rescue, and even went so far as to deliver fatal doses of morphine to some of the most ill and least easy to transport.
Another ethical disaster issue is that of disaster-time adoption, as illustrated in the recent case of a group of Pennsylvanian residents and politicians bringing a group of Haitian orphans back to Pennsylvania to be adopted. However, it has recently been discovered that some of these Haitian children may not be orphans at all.
The discussion that followed spanned a variety of these issues, and the informal setting made talking to these two professors a comfortable experience that continued for a fair amount of time.
As Lauren Manning, a floor governor who helped organize the event, said, “In the issues we discussed it is hard to know what is ‘right’ thing to do. There are always going to be exceptions that challenge your ideas.”
The opinions in the discussion were as diverse as the students in attendance: there was never a single opinion at the table on any of the tough issues discussed. In fact, many of us left with difficult questions to ponder. What long-term consequences are there for international adoption? Is there anything wrong with adopting children in a time of chaos, or should it be allowed due to the circumstances? Similarly, should doctors be granted amnesty for their actions in disasters? When the world is flipped upside down and typical ethical principles don’t suffice, what do we do and how can we justify it?
