Today, in a hospital room or a research lab, around a dining room table or in a family couch, some of us will be forced to make an impossible choice...
Do we treat or not treat? If you had cancer that ran in the family, would you have a child?
a life or death decision
Maybe. Maybe I shouldn't. Yes. It's morally complicated.
that will impact them, their families,
We didn't know anybody who had done this. It's sort of like a mass social experiment.
even society.
So the question is, put yourself in a position like that. What would you do?
From the iDeas lab at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, playing god? puts you inside the heads and the hearts of those who have to decide.
It was an indication to me that he needed me to help him die. I wasn't ready to let him go.
From assisted death,
They transfer that whole risk to clinicians and pregnant women. I feel pressure.
to experimental treatments,
When you go to Mars,
and beyond.
you're not turning around and coming back.
Each week, we explore the personal and global impacts of these decisions.
You have to live in the world.
As we invite you to ask,
Should I do it? Do I need to do it?
what would I do?
Those answers still aren't known.