8. For the Child Drowning In The Mall's Fountain

SITTING IN THE Mall of America in Bloomington, MN, a suburb of the Twin Cities, the day after the President of the United States of America announced, in reaction to town hall protests, that a public option health insurance is not a critical part of his reform plan.

I now find it only appropriate to take up the example of the great humanist, Peter Singer, in one's moral obligation to help others.

Singer's parable revolves around a child drowning in a mall's fountain. (Or maybe just in a pool in general. I think he said it was a mall fountain. In any case, I'm in the mall now, and I'm using the fountain.)

So sue me.

Here it goes from the Mall with an aquarium in its basement, an amusement park in its living room, and an airport in its backyard.



AS HUMAN BEINGS we would consider it unconscionable to, as we were walking through the mall, see a child drowning in the fountain and do nothing to help them. Of course we should simply reach over, pull the child’s face out of the water and save their life, as the story goes.

The issue or right and wrong is that simple.

But what if, in the process of saving that child’s life, your shoes got wet? For those of us wearing waterproof hiking boots we wouldn’t mind. Even those in sandals or flip-flops could walk it off.

Sneakers would lead to an afternoon of discomfort.

But if you were wearing three-hundred dollar alligator loafers, are you the one jumping in the water to help that child or hoping that barefoot hippie beats you to it?

Hopefully, no matter what shoes you are wearing, you will go out of your way to help that child, because you will, and rightfully so, value that child's life over said shoes.



LET'S UP THE ANTE. Now, the child is still drowning in the mall’s fountain...but there’s a whirlpool!

And, in the process of saving that child’s life, there’s a chance, but not a certainty, that you’d get sucked into that whirlpool, and break your arm.

(It’s not a very deep whirlpool.)

Will you still save that child? And, would you, if you decided not to save that child’s life, commit an ethical wrong?

The answer is, if your health is at risk, according to the tenets, rules, and standard operating procedures of Emergency Medicine, you are neither ethically nor legally required to provide care. You can declare the scene as unsafe, and decide not to proceed. That is your prerogative.

There are those who will risk their own health, safety, and lives to help that child regardless. Those people are heroes. But the opposite is not true. Those people who do not risk their health, safety, and lives to help the child are not monsters.

They're just ordinary people. And that's fine with me. I'm probably one of them too.



SO, IN OUR CASE, the uninsured (and those who are insured but pay too much for coverage) people of America are drowning. And there are those, who we will call "advocates" who want to help. But there are other Americans, who we will call "Lobbyists" who want the American people to continue drowning.

Who have it in their self-interest to let that child drown. (Those bastards.)

They see a man in three-hundred dollar alligator loafers and they scream out, “If you go in there, your shoes will be ruined.” But the man doesn’t listen. The man is the American People. He is the public. He is now, thanks to the prosperity of America, no longer tired, nor poor. He is free and he is brave.

His conscience tells him to save the child. He is a good person and he is doing the right thing.

But wait! The lobbyist screams from above. He cannot reach the fountain. Neither can the advocate. It is for the man to decide.

The lobbyists tells the man with the alligator shoes that if he attempts to save the child’s life, he may be sucked into a whirlpool!

“Where?” asks the man. “Where is this whirlpool?”

“Right behind the child. The second you pull her out, you will get sucked in yourself.”

“Really?” he asks.

“Yes, absolutely.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

So the man backs away for a second. A twinge of fear shoots up his spine. But he looks over at the child kicking its arms, its head in the water, desperate for help, and he says, what the hell, damn the whirlpool, I’ve got to help this kid.

The man is strong. The strongest man in the world. The child would be in good hands.

He runs over to the lip of the pool. Pennies glisten on the pool’s bottom. A soft sunlight leaks in from the open roof. He leans forward. His marble chin carves a path through the air.

He reaches for the child's hand.

“Wait!” screams out the lobbyist. “Stop right there. If you grab that child, you will, for sure, be sucked up in a whirlpool and die.”

The man stops. He looks up.

“Are you sure?”

“I am absolutely sure that saving that child’s life will result in personal harm to you.”



WHAT IS THE MAN TO DO? He thinks about his family. His children. His mother. His father. Himself. He stops. He can’t help that poor child. He hangs his head in shame and turns his attention away.

He can’t bear to look.

But there, from the rafters, is the advocate for the drowning child.

“What are you doing?” asks the advocate. “Aren’t you going to pull that child out of the fountain?”

“No,” says the man.

“Why, because of your shoes?” asks the advocate. The advocate is outraged. “You won’t save the child because of your shoes!? Your shoes!?”

“No,” replies the man. “Because if I save the child, I will be hurt myself.”

“How?” asks the advocate.

“By the whirlpool.”

“What whirlpool?” asks the advocate.

“The whirlpool that is sucking that child and that will suck me if I go to grab that child,”

“There’s no whirlpool,” explains the advocate. “There’s just water. Water, and a child no one is helping.”

The man can’t. He looks away from the advocate. He is sorry.

This only angers the advocate. “Do it,” he screams. “Go save the child!”

“No,” screams back the man.

“You won’t be hurt!” The advocate jumps up and down. "Go help! Go help!" He's beside himself. He can't think straight anymore. "Go help! Go help! You'll be fine! Think of the child!"

“Don’t tell me what to do,” the man replies. He rolls his sleeves up past his elbows.

“All you have to do is step in and take him out of there. That’s all it’ll take. Please.” His eyes water up. "Please, man. Please."

The man shakes his head. “What do you know? There’s a whirlpool back there. You come down and do it!”

But the advocate can’t. The man knows this. The advocate needs the man to pull the child out of the water. But he won’t. He’s afraid of being hurt, and so long as that fear is real, his actions are justified.

The man can become angry and belligerent. He can hate the advocate for expecting him to save the child at the expense of his own life; the advocate is some sort of communist monster for deciding that the child’s life is more important than his.

"Damn you, you son-of-a-bitch!" he screams at the advocate. "What do you know about anything?"

The child’s fate is the child’s fate, he decides. There is nothing that can be done and nothing that should be done, and as far as he is concerned the advocate should just shut his trap and accept this.

With a final flair of his nostrils, he lets the advocate know this. And the advocate sinks to his knees. He thinks there is nothing that can be done.

Maybe the child drowning isn't so bad after all, he negotiates. Maybe we'll get him next time.



SO THIS IS WHERE we now stand in the health care debate. Those who wish to save the child—Proponents of health care reform—are considered by those who have the power to save the child—The American People—to be considered obnoxious idiots because of the wild lies of those whose interest it is to let the child drown—The Private Insurance Lobby and their Right-Wing Yahoo Goons.

The lobby, which because the cost of public health care was not too great a burden--Getting our alligator loafers wet--had to invent a danger of public health care--Losing Your Doctor, Death Panels, and Communist Politics--in order to impede the American people from taking appropriate action--Saving the child.

The advocate is mad at the man for not understanding the lies of the lobbyist. How could the man be so stupid, wonders the advocate. And the man, how can the advocate be so presumptuous as to take away MY right to health and MY right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Meanwhile, while the two who should be allies fight it out, it’s the uninsured who continue to suffer and the lobbyists who continue to profit--the medicine lobby that profits when Americans don't receive medicine, that do well when the child drowns.

That is what we have come to, on this day, in the Mall of America. Those who should be allies, now locked in inane combat, while the predators continue to feast on its prey.

The man is strong. He rolls his sleeves back down. Buttons them at the wrist. And walks away.

What a scene at the mall. What a country.