Ethics Exercise

    I disagree completely with my classmates. I was shouted at for being such an immoral person, but I think that, if explained slowly and rationally, my point could make sense.

    I start form the point that sex is not something someone should be ashamed about. If someone thinks the other way, he/she will never agree with my conclusions on this issue. In my opinion, she was guilty for nothing  but not telling her parents (responsible of course, but remember she was underaged). Emphasizing with her, I think that I would be so desperate that I could do anything to deal with it. Imagine: pregnant with 17 years, your boyfriend has left  you because he doesn’t want to be involved; everyone you have turned to has left you, including a doctor friend of yours, and a nurse offers you a risky treatment that may help… From my point of view, she made a decision; it may not be the correct one, but in such a frightening and desperate scenario I can understand her.

    In my opinion, from an ethical point of view the most abhorrent one  is her boyfriend. He ran away cowardly, leaving her hopeless and not knowing what to do. He eluded his responsability as a father and as a trustworthy help that he had to be for her.

    The teacher is quite responsible too. He used the school policy as an excuse not to help her when he could have given her advice and help looking for solutions. Bit he's also the less related one, and his decision of not getting involved can be understood.

    The inexcusable one is the doctor. First of all, he didn't help her due to his conservative points of view, breaking the oath every doctor does. And also for not telling her parents being a friend of the family, when she needed all the support they could provide her.

    I find myself having to defend the nurse. Everyone critisized her for being such an unsensitive monster, advising a poor girl to go to an illegal clinic to go through a risky abortion; in my opinion, that's  really unfair. When everyone had left the girl, she was the only one trying to help her. She advised wrong (the poor girl died), but her only aim was to help the desperate teen.

    Adn finally, the parents were critisized because they didn't know what was happening in their own house. The flaw of that argument is that the mistake was not theirs but hers. The fact of not knowing exempt them of being guilty, even if they are responsible.

    Putting it in a nutshell, I think that, considering what I've explained above, this should be the order:
Boyfriend - Doctor - Nurse - Teacher - Her - Parents

My Burning Red Cardigan

      December 1998. During Christmas, my family and I went to Donosti to have a walk and, as I would know years after, buy presents. I was three years old, and I was fascinated by the lights and the carols. Once, when my parents stopped in front of a cloth-shop I saw a Olentzero singing. I was completely struck, and when he walked away, I left my grandma's hand and followed him. When my mother looked to where I was, she found nothing. The immediately stared terrified at the busy street. I, by the way, was chasing that Olentzero, that had stopped at the corner and had begun singing again. They started searching me, and of course, they found me staring completely haunted to him. My mother held my hand, and we went back to where my grandparents and my father were. When they asked where I had been, I replied, nonchalantly: "Singing with Olentzero". They smiled; fortunately, they had founded me and nothing had happened.

       They now tell me that they found me in a few moments because I wore a special cardigan that my grandma had knitted. As it was very bright red, they could see me between all those grey and black clothes that are so typical at winter.