Monday, April 8, 2013

Bill SB132

Though it may seem to be a bill that is entirely political in nature, I think it is still greatly related to Bioethics, as it has deep socio-economic and psychological ramifications which are necessarily intertwined with ethics in general. In short, the proposed bill would cut funding of needy families up to 30 percent in the event that their children are not performing well enough in school. This came as a shock to me, because I understood tough economic situations to depreciate academic performance, rather than fertilize it. The ramifications would seem to then create even greater income disparities, and literally cripple some single-parent families who already struggle enough to survive, none of which live in situations that the current lawmakers could possibly be experiencing at the moment.

I thought perhaps the legislature would have displayed a more developed sense of human empathy, thinking "this bill is so abhorrent it couldn't possibly pass," but both house and senate health committees have voted by simple majority to "pass with amendments," -- amendments which have yet to actually be defined or perhaps even conceived.

I do not know of any possible human emotion that could drive the creation of such an unnecessarily malicious bill, other than outright contempt for human life. It's very short, and the raw text of it can be found in the link below.

http://openstates.org/tn/bills/108/SB132/documents/TND00018127/

1 comment:

  1. "Empathy" is too big and fancy a word for our legislators, apparently. What would be a good handle for this bill, "no child left unscathed"?

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