Making Moral Judgments?

I am writing in response to the article in the March 21 issue with the headline “Court Allows State to Medicate Death-Row Inmate Forcibly.”

Do I see a dilemma in the disapproval of treating death-row inmates while advocating the treatment of incompetent individuals to stand trial? What if the trial will lead to a death sentence? Once we make the treatment of our patients dependent on our own moral judgment regarding their fate, don’t we put ourselves on a slippery slope? What about the soldier whom we might not want to treat because we might put him at risk to be killed in a war that we consider unjust? What about treating a prisoner about whose recidivism there is no doubt in our minds?