Here’s another ethical issue and Jewish source response:
Case
Dr. Lawrence Kohlberg (z”l) pioneered the use of “moral dilemmas” in values education. Here is his most famous case:
In Europe, a woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, and the druggist was charging ten times what it cost him to make. He paid $400 for the radium and charged $4,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman’s husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money and tried every legal means, but he was only able to raise about $2,000. Heinz asked the druggist to sell it to him cheaper or let him pay later. The druggist said, “No, I discovered the drug, and I’m going to make money from it.” So, having tried every legal means, Heinz got desperate and considered breaking into the man’s store to steal the drug for his wife.
Should Heinz steal the drug?
Answer
[a] Saving another person’s life is an obligation. Anyone who can save someone’s life and does not do so transgresses: “You shall not stand by the blood of your neighbors.” (Leviticus 19:16). Similarly, if one sees a neighbor drowning in the sea, accosted by robbers, or attacked by wild animals and can save the neighbor personally or can hire others to save the neighbor and does not act, he transgresses “You shall not stand by the blood of your brother” (Sanhedrin 74a; Maimonides, laws of Theft 1:14).
[b] However, the cost of saving a life is not always simple. If X was chasing another, Y, to kill him/her, and Y broke some things while s/he was fleeing, there are two cases:
[1] If they belonged to X, the person fleeing need not pay, because his/her life is more valuable than the broken property.
[2] But if they belong to someone else, then Y must pay, because s/he can’t save her/his own life at a neighbor’s expense.
If Z was chasing X in order to save Y’s life and Z broke something along the way, it does not matter if it belonged to X or Y or another person; Z is not responsible for what is broken. Because if we do not make this rule, no one will try to save a neighbor from a pursuer (Sanhedrin 72a).
[c] Rabbi Mark Dratch: Based on Sanhedrin 74a, Heinz may steal the medicine to save his wife’s life, and he need not pay for it or be considered a criminal. He is saving another’s life.
Joel Grishaver, “You Be the Judge”, pgs. 93-94
Used with permission from Joel Grishaver
