The dollar value of a human life
This BizWeek article about preemies brings up the issue of how much money it is worth spending to save a human life. A popular knee-jerk reaction is to claim that you cannot put a price on the life of a person. It's easy to demonstrate that this is not true. All I need do is point out the large number of people who die every day from causes are
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My mum complained that my dad's life was 'worth nothing' when he went complain about stomach paints. The doctor diagnosing him made some fatal errors that I want him accounted for, and only for a Russian doctor my mum or dad were in the end able to get the correct diagnosis. Weeks too late. What he was worth after was getting some basic surgery, get him home, .. and watch him die.
If he had been younger.. he'd probably- or at least hopefully- have been diagnosed faster and been done something to keep him alive more. Too late now...
For my own life, there is any value only while I'm alive. When I'm dead, there is no value left, it's all too late then. But I realize I have value to others, as do the people I really care for have value for me. Priceless.
For the generic not-in-my-inmediate-family-or-friends cases, I'd probably get a gross estimate based on average. There are 6,5 billion humans on this planet, and I don't want to value anyone from a specific country more than someone else, only based on country or skin color.
If I sound grumpy, blame the foodless Wednesday.... /sigh.
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