Bioethics: Catastrophic Events in a Time of Terror

Fire, flood, earthquake, famine, pestilence, and warfare are no strangers to our experience. Once, we sought to placate the gods who brought these evils upon us. Today, clinicians, engineers, and politicians replace priests, prophets, seers, and shamans, and we_Americans in particular_think to impose our will upon the world. In times of catastrophe, issues of good and evil surrender to rapid, nearly automatic, operational response. Yet the catastrophic event poses unavoidable moral choices,...