Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Wow, class privilege wtf.

So unusualmusic linked this post on a debate community which has some of the worst faces of humanity laid out in the comments.

The question:

A single mother has a child with a disease that will kill him if he goes without his medicine. She works two full time jobs but they still struggle. Sometimes the kid's prescription does not get filled right away because she has to pay rent or childcare. One day, the mother is rushing from work to get to the pharmacy before it closes because the kid has been without meds for a week. She has no car and her boss did not let her leave early. She misses the bus because the driver was running significantly early and did not wait to get back on schedule. She does not make it to the pharmacy in time. The kid dies in his sleep that night.

Who is at fault?


The answers? Some people point out that if she's in America, she lives in a country where health care is a luxury, and if it's not a right, then her kid doesn't have a right to it. This is a fucked up place to raise a child who needs health care. My love to the people who point this out.

Less love to people who reply with shit like this:

I feel bad, but the mom. Letting the meds lapse that long just left her wide open for murphy's law to just align like that. Talk to the landlord for an extension? Mention to the boss ahead of time when you need to leave early instead of trying to dash out the door or ask to take a long lunch break and grab it then? Hell, call the pharmacy or the child's doctor to get permission for a friend to pick the meds up for her if she can. There were lots of routes she could have taken and, though she's not psychic, she shoulda known at least one of those could go wrong. It's unfortunate the fates aligned so badly, but it all started with the rent or meds decision. =(

This does just showcase a lot of holes in society these days, but then again, the people on the other side of the situations are probably put out by more than one person needing more time on the rent or are just late with no notice, or needing time off at the last second and they have to find someone to cover. The mom really needed to cover her bases and it sucks that the whole mess was paid for with her child. =(

No prosecution, though, even though the one week of no meds was pretty terrible. =(
Or this!
If the kid was a week without meds, that's just damn neglectful. It's easy to justify it with "reasons" but they still are just excuses.

Fuck you. Fuck you people for not having any goddamn idea what it means to have less than enough. Fuck you all for bolstering your own desperate hope that this could never happen to you by assuming it must happen to nasty lazy shitty people who are nothing like you.

Lots of people said that she should have done anything--anything, anything--to keep the kid's meds from lapsing for a week.

Do anything? Do anything to ensure her kid gets that medicine? If she's working multiple jobs and is never home to be there with her kid, you'll call her a bad mom who doesn't pay enough attention to her family, and if something goes wrong, she'll be to blame. If she sells drugs to get the money, you'll call her home dangerous and take her child away and throw her in jail. If she sells sex to get it, not only is she a bad woman and a criminal, but she's a dirty whore bad woman as well.

Do anything, they say. Do anything. They have no idea what they're talking about. Agh.

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