The cure or the law?

To start off today, I would like to paint you a picture and then have you stop and think about the scene before moving on. I am going to describe a hypothetical situation. Respond how you would if this situation were actually happening to you. Don't try to change any of the story by saying it's improbable or would never happen. For argument's sake assume that it does and is happening exactly the way I describe.

You start out like all of us, going it alone in life. One day you meet someone and fall madly in love. You decide that the two of you are going to spend the rest of your lives together. But something happens and your partner comes down with a rare non-communicable disease. It is not contagious, but it is fatal. They have only a few weeks left to live.

There is a cure for this disease, but it is more money than you will ever be able to amass through your own personal efforts at your job,through your savings or begging, borrowing and stealing. But speaking of stealing, the cure is kept in a place that you know about, not too far from where you live. There is no alarm or security of any kind. You think you could go in at night and get enough medicine to cure your loved one.

 Please, stop reading for a few minutes. Take some time and think about it. What do you do?

The point of this exercise is to do kind of a psychological self examination. How you answer says a lot about how you make choices, what you value, your overall ethical system and what is really most important to you. For most people the decision would be very simple to make even though many of those people would not make the same choices.

See, on the one hand you have the general code of ethics that most of us share. We all are taught at a young age that stealing is wrong and so it is. But we are also taught that love is valuable and important. This example asks us to make a choice between the two of them. Do you follow the law and watch the person you care about die? Or do you break the law and save their life? Do you sit there and do nothing and hope that some other solution will come along? Do you look for an alternate solution of your own and wait until the very last possible moment before choosing between these two things?

There are several different "levels" of ethics, the highest of which cannot be achieved until we have reached a certain point in our view of the world and our overall level of maturity. Many people, regardless of age, never reach this top level of ethics. I won't tell you whether I have or not, I will only share with you my thoughts on this exercise.

It would take me very little time to make my decision. For me, the question isn't about law or love. It is about life. I believe that life is the most important most precious thing there is. And I would break any law or make any number of people upset in order to save a life, especially the life of someone close to me. So, I would break into the location where the medicine is stored and steal it. Out of respect for other people, I would do as little damage to the facility and personnel as possible, but if I had to disarm or knock one or more people unconscious in order to meet my goal, I would not hesitate to do so.

After the fact, once my loved one was out of danger, then I would worry about the consequences. See, I understand and accept that I would have to do some things that I see as wrong in order to save a life. But I am not blind to the reality that not everyone would agree with my choice. I may end up going to jail or having to live with the ill will of others for what I decided to do. And I am okay with that. While my loved one was in danger though, all other bets are off.

What would you do? Would you steal the cure and save their life? Why or why not?