Thursday, January 08, 2009 - Posts
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How carelessly is Israel killing civilians in Gaza? Let's ask the hospitals and the United Nations.
In Dense Gaza, Civilians Suffer
Among the total dead—between 320 and 390, according to the United Nations—Palestinian medical officials say that 38 were children and 25 were women. The United Nations agency that helps Palestinian refugees said 25 percent of those killed had been civilians. (New York Times, Dec. 31, paragraph 6)
Sounds bad. Or how about this:
Israel Deepens Gaza Incursion as Toll Mounts
Palestinian medical officials estimated that the death toll during the war reached 550 on Monday. The United Nations estimated that about a quarter of those killed were civilians. (Times, Jan. 5, paragraph 8)
It's amazing how high the ratio of civilian to combat injuries can be. For example:
Gaza Hospital Fills Up, Mainly With Civilians
In recent days, most of those arriving at Shifa appeared to be civilians. On Sunday, there was no trace here of the dozens of Hamas fighters that the Israeli military said its ground forces had hit in the past few hours in exchanges of fire. The exact reason was not clear. Many ambulance drivers refused to go near the fighting. It also seemed possible that Hamas and Israeli fighters were still battling at some less lethal distance. It was difficult to know whether fighters were spread out at other hospitals. (Times, Jan. 4, paragraph 16)
And now, today:
U.N. Suspends Food Aid Into Gaza
The United Nations suspended its food aid deliveries into Gaza on Thursday after one of its contract drivers was killed during an Israeli attack ... (Times, Jan. 8, paragraph 1)
Those nasty, reckless Israelis. All they seem to hit is one civilian or rescue worker after another. In fact, you have to read all the way down to the very bottom of today's 30-paragraph story to find this:
But Palestinian residents and Israeli officials say that Hamas is tending its own wounded in separate medical centers, not in public hospitals, and that it is difficult to know the number of dead Hamas fighters, many of whom were not wearing uniforms.
Oops! No wonder the Times couldn't find those Hamas fighters at Shifa. The fighters aren't at the hospitals. So we don't really know how many of them have been wounded—or killed, since they aren't in uniform, even if we had access to all the bodies. So we don't know what percentage of the dead or wounded are civilians. All we know is that the percentage is lower than you'd guess from counting patients at the hospitals.
Every life is precious. The bloodshed in Gaza is awful, and I hope it ends today. But the ratio of civilian to combat injuries and casualties being reported out of the war zone is inflated, and we simply don't know by how much. It makes one side look more careless than it actually is. And the other side, by concealing its dead and wounded, is controlling the inflation.
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Can you get paid for donating an organ?
In practice, you can. All over the world, people are being paid for their kidneys. But what about the United States? Under U.S. law, can you demand compensation for such a gift?
Richard Batista of Long Island, N.Y., thinks he can. He's suing his ex-wife for $1.5 million, citing, among other things, the kidney he gave her eight years ago. He says she rewarded his life-saving generosity by having an affair, divorcing him, and keeping their children away from him.
Newsday implies the case will go nowhere:
Medical ethicists agreed that the case is a nonstarter. Arthur Caplan of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Bioethics said the likelihood of Batista getting either his kidney or cash was "somewhere between impossible and completely impossible." Robert Veatch, a medical ethicist at Georgetown University's Kennedy Institute of Ethics, noted that "it's illegal for an organ to be exchanged for anything of value."
I'm not so sure. Batista can't take his kidney back, but that's not what he's after. He wants his ex-wife to let him visit their kids, on pain of compensating him for what he gave her. And what he gave her, according to his attorney, wasn't just an organ but a livelihood. According to Newsday, the attorney says the $1.5 million demand "reflects damages, including how much money she made as a result of being able to continue working and not having to go on dialysis." So the dollar figure isn't based on the price of an organ (which would be considerably cheaper, based on the going rate of kidneys abroad); it's based on the income one spouse accrued thanks to the other's sacrifice. And sacrifices between spouses are treated differently, under the law, from sacrifices between strangers or friends. There's a tradition and expectation of common benefit. You and your spouse become one flesh—in this case, literally.
I'm sure some of you clever lawyers can figure out how to position this claim as an extension of those divorce cases where the wife gets compensated for devoting herself to her husband's executive career. "It's not the organ itself we're asking you to value. It's the financial benefit the defendant gained thanks to the risk, the pain, and the extensive, invasive medical procedures this good man, this loving husband, endured. Yes, it was a gift of love—but no less a gift of love than the other sacrifices so many spouses make for each other's careers. Let it be acknowledged in the same way."
I'm tearing up already. Will it work? I wouldn't bet a kidney on it. But it's worth a try.
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