A matter of ethics

I am teaching ethics at school now. I made the students think about what was considered ethical behaviour. I even made them come up with what they thought was unethical behaviour for various groups of people in society, including parents.

I have been an unethical mom. I have gone against what I believe and what I strive to teach my students.

Jordan has been febrile for days. Panadol was just a pink placebo for her, doing nothing but making her feel slightly better just because it was pink but not doing anything for the fever. Nurofen barely controlled the temperature. At wits end and at the encouragement of my mother, I thought to try the TCM version of Nurofen, something innocuously called "Ling Yang".

Unfortunately, "Ling Yang" goes by a more sinister name- the rhinocerous horn. And as a rule, I am anti anything to do with animals, especially when it supports cruelty to animals and illegal poaching.

The only problem was this "Ling Yang" was supposed to work to break the fever and when a child has been febrile for ten days and on a second course of antibiotics, it calls for desperate measures.

My guilt comes from various things.

1. I am not setting a good example for my children, to grow up to be socially responsible people who will make it a point, regardless of how difficult it is to not indulge in these illegally acquired goods that are supposed to work.

2. I worked very hard over the years to convince my in laws that they shouldn't eat shark's fin and it was a cruel thing to do. By allowing rhino horn to be fed to Jordan might, in their eyes, may mean that I am revisiting the issue and perhaps finding it more palatable to eat the tasteless shark appendage. This would mean for them that they can finally peacefully order the stuff at dinner without me making a fuss on my soap box and causing them to feel uncomfortable while eating it.

3. I genuinely feel sad and sorry for the animal. I also feel extremely guilty because I know I wouldn't like it very much if some alien race thought it was greatly beneficial to eat my knee caps or something.

Dear Rhino,

Please accept my apologies for having been part of the reason why you no longer have a horn and have a bloody stump in its place. I would, if possible get you a prosthetic one to make up for the fact that I am party to the cruelty inflicted upon you.

For that I am greatly sorry.















Addendum : Many people have informed me that "ling yang" is apparently antelope's horn and it is okay because the horns grow back. But when I checked, apparently, the antelopes are gravely endangered too.



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