an ethical dilemma

[gnutmeg]

I need primary research (aka, to ask people) for my ethics assignment, so I'm going to ask for all your help. Please read the following paragraph and give me your honest answer and reasoning behind it. The more answers and opinions I get on this, the more it will help me with this assignment. So please, if you don't mind...

A child was near death with a rare virus. The only drug that might save him had recently been developed by a local doctor. The doctor had spent a great deal of time and money developing the drug and was charging ten times as much for it ($1,000) as it cost him to make it ($100). The boy’s father didn’t have enough money to buy it, even after trying as hard as he could to borrow the money. He asked the doctor to sell it to him at half the price or let him pay on credit, but the doctor refused. The father was desperate and stole the drug from the doctor’s office.

Ethical issue: Was the father right or wrong to steal the drug?

Comments

[rabi.livejournal.com]

Also, I want to elaborate on this.

You said that the only drug that MIGHT save the child was recently developed by this doctor. The keyword being MIGHT here. Even by stealing the drug and giving it to his kid, the child might still die. What is there to say that the father might not sue the doctor afterwards for giving his child improper treatment?

Even though a doctor is supposed to save lives, this drug may or may not work on the kid. Also, a doctor's practice is his business. The principle of running a business is to make money. Who says that the $1000 is not a justifiable amount? It might cost only $100 to manufacture the drug, but it might have cost a lot more over the course of the doctor's career to research and develop this drug. This amount is not mentioned in the assignment.