Austria

Now THIS Is An Unethical Surgeon…

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Don’t you just hate it when you’re under anesthesia for a serious operation, and while you’re unconscious your surgeon lets her 13-year-old daughter take over?

Graz University Hospital in Austria ( Graz is the regional capital of Styria, Austria’s second-largest state) released this apology: “The hospital’s management would like to express its utmost regret and extend its sincere apologies for this incident, and is working to fully clarify the matter.” The “matter” is this: After a 33-year-old man was flown to the hospital with serious head injuries following an accident, the female neurosurgeon, whose name has not been revealed so far, apparently allowed her 13-year-old daughter to scrub in. Maybe it was “take your daughter to work” day or something, but the aspiring distaff Doogie Howser was accused by a whistle-blowing member of the surgical team of actively taking part in the emergency surgery, including drilling a hole in the patient’s skull to relieve pressure from cranial bleeding.

Continue reading →

More Ethics Movies For The Holidays: “Woman In Gold”

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

portrait-of-adele-bloch-bauer-i-by-gustav-klimt

The movie critics site “Rotten Tomatoes”calls “Woman in Gold” dull, which tells you pretty much all you need to know about “Rotten Tomatoes.” No, there are no explosions, no sex scenes, no CGI, just a well-acted, powerful story of how justice can take a long time to prevail, but given enough dedication, integrity and luck, it still does prevail with sufficient frequency to stave off despair.

“Woman in Gold” is a 2015 film starring Ryan Reynolds and Helen Mirren. It is a virtual docudrama telling the true story (mostly accurately) of Maria Altmann (Mirren), a plucky Jewish refugee in Los Angeles, who, assisted by her young lawyer, Randy Schoenberg, battled the government of Austria  to obtain the return of Gustav Klimt’s renowned portrait of her aunt, Adele Bloch-Bauer. That painting, along with more by Klimt and  other painters as well, were among the art treasures stolen by the Nazis  prior to World War II. The legal battle ended up before the Supreme Court of the United States, and the conflict was finally settled by a shocking decision by an Austrian panel of mediators. You can read about the real case here.

It may be dull to dull minds, as Red Smith famously said about baseball, but I have seen the film twice now, and it moved me to tears both times. “Woman in Gold” shows once more, as I fervently believe, that right can and often does triumph over bureaucracies, greed, power and stupidity, and that lawyers, maligned as they are, are often essential to that process. Schoenberg shows us the epitome of a zealous and courageous lawyer, making personal and professional sacrifices for a cause he comes to believe is important both to his client and to humanity. Continue reading →

A Daughter Sues Her Parents For Being Assholes. Good.

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

photo

An 18-year-old Austrian woman is suing her parents for continually posting embarrassing childhood photos of her on Facebook without her consent. Since 2009, she alleges, they have willfully humiliated her by constantly posting intimate images from her childhood—about 500 to date. Among them are potty training photos and pictures of her having her diapers changed.

The abused daughter told reporters, “They knew no shame and no limit – and didn’t care whether it was a picture of me sitting on the toilet or lying naked in my cot – every stage was photographed and then made public.” Her parents have  700 Facebook friends.

The technical term for them is “cruel and merciless assholes.”

They have refused to delete the photos, with her father arguing that since he took the photos he has the right to publish them to the world.

Oh, what does the law have to do with this? If the parents had any decency, and sense of fairness, respect and caring, the law wouldn’t have to be involved in any way.  Their daughter feels humiliated, as most of us would be, by having such photos published. There is no ethical principle under which publishing photographs (or videos) of anyone that were taken without consent when the subject objects or one knows or should know that he or should would object can be justified. This controversy, if ethical parents were involved, would be settled with a simple exchange:

Her: “Please don’t put anymore of those photos on Facebook, and take down the ones that are up now. They are embarrassing.”

Them: “OK!”

How hard is that? I know it’s hard for parents to resist posting photos of their adorable infants and toddlers while they are too young to protest, but the protest should be presumed. The Golden Rule rules, and I go further: this is an absolute. Children should not have their lifetime privacy scarred by parents selfishly indulging themselves by treating their children like pets. Children should be able to trust their parents to respect their sensibilities and vulnerabilities, and not to sacrifice them for cheap Facebook “likes.”  Obviously, many of them can’t.

Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: The Nazi Scientist

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

Scientist, genius, Nobel Prize winner, Nazi. Now what?

Scientist, genius, Nobel Prize winner, Nazi. Now what?

Konrad Lorenz, 1903-1989 ,  was an acclaimed Austrian zoologist regarded as the founder of modern ethology, which is the study of animal behavior. His research  explained how behavioral patterns may be traced to through evolution,  and he made major contributions to the study of aggression and its roots. Lorenz shared a Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1973 with the animal behaviorists Karl von Frisch and Nikolaas Tinbergen.

It seems that documentation surfaced proving that Lorenz joined the Nazi Party in 1938, however, and for that, Austria’s Salzburg University last week posthumously stripped him of his honorary doctorate.

Your Day Before The Night Before Christmas Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz is…

Is this the right thing to do?

Continue reading →