Ooh, I so wanted to put this in Great Debates, but I expect its more of a peer review/ what’s-your-input kind of thing.
Help me win an argument willya? Or tell me how I’m wrong so I can stop spreading my own ignorance; this is one of those issues that is important if true, and important if not true.
For a few weeks now, I’ve had a rather heated debate with the van driver at the care center I work at. She has in indelibly etched into her mind that, when you have "organ donor" on your drivers license or other identification, the doctors will invariably "let you die" so they can harvest your organs. Try as I might to explain how counterintuitive that is, she refused to budge on the subject. To make matters worse, I think she's convincing some of the more gullible CNA's.
I've never been the most eloquent of debaters. I can form and defend an argument just fine, I just can't convey it vocally all that well. So I went home and started furiously typing a response. Yeah yeah, she'd probably never actually read it, and I most likely will never actually never give it to her, but dash it all, even impotent rage deserves an outlet sometimes! Besides, I expect with some tweaking I have a decent start on an argumentative research paper for next semester :D
Anyways, here’s what I started writing, what do you all think?
{“First Do No Harm”
May I begin by stating that it was never my intent to mock you or your opinion on the matter of organ transplantation, merely to correct a harmful urban myth that you have been told. This will be my final attempt to draw your attention to what I believe is a very serious error; if after reading through these notes and the included cites your mindset is not changed, I will no longer be the one to bring up the subject.
Do understand however, that, if provoked, I will defend my position on the subject mercilessly. You may consider yourself fortunate; I very seldom go to this kind of length to prove a point. Everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt, and I let most potential disagreements fall to the wayside in the interest of keeping the peace. I generally don’t argue any subject until two criteria are met;
1- It is a subject of great importance to me
2- And I know that I am right
This issue fits both perfectly.
Most urban legends and myths are relatively harmless. Individuals who believe that the moon landing was staged, while making light of a singular marvel of engineering, are really not doing any harm by believing a demonstrably false assertion. Those who cling the the notion that humans only use “10%” of their brains, while ignoring volumes of evidence to the contrary, aren’t causing anyone any particular pain.
However, very few falsehoods have the potential to elicit any sort of good outcome. Believing and spreading claims that are verifiably untrue can cause incalculable damage, especially when they pertain to medical issues.
Most any advance in medicine and technology has had it’s share of closed-minded detractors. The discovery of the Smallpox vaccine, for example, arguably the greatest medical breakthrough ever achieved, had throngs of protesters demonizing it as unnatural and grotesque. Consequently, individuals who could have been saved by a simple inoculation instead died horribly, having been frightened away by uninformed scaremongers. The claim that having “Donor” on your drivers license is setting yourself up as an organ buffet for unscrupulous doctors is comparably ill-advised.
For the sake of this argument, let us assume that the whole of the medical establishment is, as you seem to already believe, corrupt to the core. We imagine that each and every doctor on earth spits on the Hippocratic oath, that each and every nurse scoffs at the Nightingale pledge. Only then can the horror and scale of this notion believe even be possible. }
A little long winded maybe and I haven’t even got to any of my major points yet. Still fun to write. Haven’t yet got to citing sources, though I have a few in mind. Anyone know a decent source for me to use that she may find credible (i.e. one that is not “influenced” by evil-evil medical establishment)?