Catching news updates and fragments today, I found lodged in my mind the recollection of reading C.S. Lewis' That Hideous Strength, about the debasing of life's value in the scientific era. I know the story is dreadfully dated--about the eugenics movement, etc. But, the more clinical we become, the more we talk about the "quality of life," the more we talk about whose say-so it is to remove nutrition and hydration from this human person (who is NOT in the final throes of a fatal disease), the less it seems that the life itself, whose value is infinite and absolute, matters.
Of course, the novel is not about the evils of science entire, but about what happens when science (in our case, medecine) begins to serve the purposes of expediency and ideology. I think we should be very disillusioned about medical practice after this is over. Should I have to ask my doctor about her/his politics before I get really sick?
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