Author:

Abstract

In the 1960s, The God Committee was a group of seven everyday citizens, not doctors, given a trolley problem: they were tasked with selecting which people could receive costly renal failure treatment and turning the rest away. Because dialysis was new and only available in Seattle, if the committee did not select you for the procedure, you were as good as dead. As one could imagine, choosing who lives and who dies was not an easy task, nor was it free of societial values. Racism, ageism, sexism, ableism and classism were all evident within the decisions made by these individuals. Whether the decisions were based on pure prejudice or justified using the monetary disadvantages caused by these values being institutionalized is debatable, however. Unfortunately, while it does not take place in this exact form today, morality within science is still a contemporary issue.

How to Cite: Judd, C., 2017. The God Commitee: Likeness & Dichotomy. Philologia, 9. DOI: http://doi.org/10.21061/ph.v9i0.216