Posted on 12/21/2001 11:46:28 AM PST by LiveFree2000
The moral minefield of a boy's dying wish 21dec01 But there's a problem – he's in hospital, he doesn't want to talk to his mum and dad about it, and having been sick and in and out of hospital since the age of 12, he has formed no friendships or relationships with girls from his peer group. The boy, let's call him Jack, simply wants to experience what every testosterone-driven heterosexual teenage boy thinks about, allegedly, every 17 seconds. Sex. So what does he do? It sounds like a hypothetical situation, but this story is true and Jack is real. His heartbreaking story about death and desire came to light last month when the child psychologist dealing with Jack wrote a letter to the Radio National program, Life Matters, in which moral dilemmas are discussed by academics. It's a fascinating topic for academic discussion: how does a minor and the people who care for him tread though the ethical and practical minefield to see that he gets such a wish? And firstly, should he even be granted his wish? While many of us might scream reflexively "Yes! Of course!", cautious ethicists may ask questions. Is a 15 year-old, officially a child, intellectually and emotionally competent to make such a mature decision? Do the parents have a right to know? Should the woman involved be charged with the criminal offence of having sex with a minor? Should a prostitute be involved? Should the hospital staff help to organise something? All valid questions ripe for discussion, but forget the academic debate. What happened to Jack himself? Yesterday, the child psychologist – who wishes to remain anonymous – told The Daily Telegraph the rest of the dying boy's story. He had become involved after a nurse tending Jack – the only person Jack took into his confidence – urged the boy to talk to him. So Jack spoke to the child psychologist, who specifically deals with children dying of terminal diseases, and this was not the first time the psychologist had heard of such a wish from a teenage boy. "He had been sick for quite a long period and his schooling was very disrupted, so he hadn't had many opportunities to acquire and retain friends, and his access to young women was pretty poor," said the psychologist. "But he was very interested in young women and was experiencing that surge of testosterone that teenage boys have." So Jack and the psychologist had a series of thorough discussions in which they went through every possible permutation of what might happen to him physically and emotionally so that he was "completely prepared" for the prospect of living out his final dream. Jack's state of mind, he said, was sensible and mature and psychologically, totally competent. As he said: "Terminally ill kids get very wise, very quickly" and Jack had been sick for a long time. The hospital staff who knew about Jack's wish at first wanted to help, their first reaction being "let's do a whip around and pay for a prostitute" but of course ethical and legal considerations stopped them in their tracks. The psychologist also had canvassed members of the clergy, and found an interesting response: "It really polarised them, about half said what's your problem? And the other half said [the idea] demeans women and reduces the sexual act to being just a physical one. "I just saw it as a legitimate request of a young man who wants to experience something that can do no harm." The psychologist said that with Jack, he rigorously questioned what damage might be done to him as a result of fulfilling his wish, and the answer came up every time: none. "Everyone's uncomfortable with teenage sex, period," said the psychologist. "Adolescents becoming sexual is enormously confronting, and a lot of people believe that kids shouldn't be sexual. But we are sexual from the womb to the tomb – that's my view. "But ethics and morals aside, in children dying over a long period of time, there is often a condition we call 'skin hunger'." This happens when a child, seriously ill and in and out of hospital and receiving medical treatment over a long period, yearns for non-clinical contact because "mostly when people touch them, it's to do something unpleasant, something that might hurt". "So you ask," said the psychologist, "what was this young man wanting? "Was he wanting a cuddle?" Probably yes, but as his illness and its treatment hadn't obliterated his normal teenage urges, he also really wanted that consummate experience. So without his parents knowing, and completely without the involvement of the hospital staff, and not – it must be stressed – on the hospital's premises, Jack "did engage in the act and it was everything he wished it to be". "He was very, very happy and only slightly disappointed that it was over quickly." "The act", his dying wish, was with a sex worker who was "organised by friends who thought it was the right thing to do". All precautions were taken, and the friends made sure the act was fully consensual and involved no abuse or exploitation. As for the legal ramifications of such a case, "quite clearly the law was broken, but of the people involved, most didn't give a toss," the psychologist said. And what of the parent's right to know about their son? Jack simply didn't want to talk to them about it. He loved them, but they are religious and he didn't want them to know. Anyway, what 15-year-old boy does want to talk to his parents about sex, even under normal circumstances? There is also legal precedence for a minor of sufficient maturity and intelligence to be given confidential medical treatment but does sex with a prostitute count as treatment? "Absolutely. It is absolutely part of therapy," said the psychologist, "Because it was what he wanted. People talk about a trip to Disneyland being therapeutic what's the difference? It was what he wanted." So Jack got what he wanted, and last week, he finally lost his fight with the cancer.
Is it right or wrong to grant a dying teenaged boy his wish to have sex? LUCY CLARK examines a modern ethical dilemma:
A 15 YEAR-OLD boy is terminally ill with cancer. He knows he doesn't have very long to live, and he has a dying wish. It is not to go to Disneyland or to meet his favourite actor, rock or sports star but it is this: he wants to make love to a woman.
I was thinking along the same lines. He has us doing backflips attempting to prove something for him out of the Old Testament. It's quite easy to reason out the answer without playing wordgames: What does Orthodox Judaism teach about pre-marital sex? That closes the case for reasonable men.
Anything which does not glorify God, should be prohibited?
I have different desires.
In a big government hopital, paid for by big government insurance, a dying child boils the meaning of life down to the sex act.
This kid is the perfect liberal - an adolescent who seeks a mommy government, leaving him free to pursue a life of promiscuity and appetite.
This assumption is: after you die, you will never again have the opportunity to have sexual relations.
If one is an athiest who believes that once you are dead, that's it, there is no aspect of your unique personality that retains its identity beyond the point of death (no such thing as a spirit that exists beyond death), no God, no afterlife, no judgment, no heaven, no hell, then sure, what the heck, let the kid have what he wants.
To my understanding, it is also possible to believe in an afterlife of some kind, but to also believe that one will not ever be "human" again, but will be transformed/resurrected into a different form of life of some kind and that, yes, death truly is the end of the human experience, so therefore, every human experience that is capable of bringing joy to a person is forever denied to that person after [s]he dies, and one can question, therefore, if God would really have a problem with someone granting this kid this request. Some believers may actually be able to justify what some would view as an immoral request in this way.
However, there is also the belief that resurrection will restore a person's to exactly what he was before death (with the exception that the resurrected body is different somehow in that it will no longer be subject to death), and that the post-resurrection form of life and society resembles, in many ways, pre-resurrectional life and society, and that therefore, the kid will again, as a post-resurrectional being, have the opportunity to have sexual relations. Given the perfected body, it'll be way more enjoyable and better at that point than some illicit rush job performed in a body that happens to be on its way out the door.
If one takes this particular viewpoint, the question then becomes: Hey, kid, what's your rush? Your impending death causes you absolutely no loss of human physical opportunities, merely a postponement of them.
Of course, it all becomes a matter of belief. What does the kid believe? And since the kid is a minor, what do his parents believe?
And all in all, I agree with the person who raised the question about this whole setup not passing the smell test.
(And on a slightly different note, once again I'm amused by the use of the euphemism of "sex worker". That probably says it all about the source of this whole thing.)
For me to say what Christ would or would not approve of would be for me to pass judgement upon this (hypothetical) action.
I don't know about this one case in which marriage is not possible, but I really do not think (again, I don't think) Christ would approve of all the finger pointing and innuendo that goes on regarding sexual matters.
I have my doubts as to the authenticity of this story. It sounds more like a moral relativism class exercise to me than a real event.
Uhhhhh.... in case you hadn't noticed, the kid was dying.
He wasn't left free to pursue a LIFE of anything.
Jackass.
I am neither expert on fornication nor Jewish, but I was told by a Rabbi that fornication takes place when a married person has sex with another person outside of marriage. The married person is the one guilty of fornication, not the unmarried person.
The unmarried person may be guilty of something though, on that I am not sure. Can you set me straight?
Ah, the Clinton legacy.
So isn't it a shame that they ignored his inability to give consent (due to age) and gave him a quick and somewhat disappointing coupling with a 'sex worker' as his only understanding of what love and sex are all about? Wouldn't you be disappointed if that was all you knew about it?
Putting the moral aspects aside for a moment, I don't think it would have been possible for him to have a meaningful experience given his age, maturity, and situation. By attempting to give him what they may have considered was the next best thing, they did him a disservice.
The adults should have known better.
Uhhhh, that sounds like the description of adultery. Are you sure you got that right?
You don't grasp the seriousness of man's sin before Holy God. The real question is why God allows any of us to live another millisecond.
Questioning His grace is never a good thing to do.
Do you think your God really likes all that groveling?
That wouldn't make him a very decent creature.
Maybe your opinion of him is a bit messed-up.
Even for atheists/materialists this isn't an idle question - lets say that cryogenics allows us to suspend a person for while - I think in that case, waiting might be a better option. But the fact is that with today's technology, he is dying and that moral presciptions based on long-term effects of minor sins (say sex or even mild drug use) don't seem to apply in this case.
Of course those who say he's being denied a wonderful love affair are right - but he doesn't have time or the energy for it. He might as well experience parts of it, knowing that there are other things he won't experience.
He doesn't need anything, much less groveling. But He's looking for those who will become broken in spirit, humble and teachable. The proud who refuse to be broken will have their day; they sentence themselves.
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