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[Ken Burch]

38. I've added the following to the OP:

&quot Note: all of what follows is written on the assumption that the family is telling the truth about the denial of insurance coverage)".

My feeling is that, if the family is, in fact, being honest about what their insurer did, nobody can really judge them. There is only a short window of time within which they can try to repair the child's face before the damage becomes irreparable. Given that, there is a limit to how much sanctimony the rest of us, especially those of us who live in greater comfort, can aim at them.

After all, most corporate hospitals won't do this kind of work for free, and if the girl's face isn't repaired now, her life is over. Morality is useless when you are physically disfigured for life, as she would be if they waited until they could pay for thesurgery on their own. This society never has a place for women with mangled faces and never will.

Do you want the kid to have no hope of a real life just so she'll absorb bourgeois abstractions about "lying"? Abstractions the people who run this society never follow in their actions now(and therefore, never will)?

People should generally tell the truth...but there are times when simple compassion has to come first.