Christian Worldview Concepts

Medical Practitioners

The Effects of Medical Consumerism

The human-egg auction house on the Internet is just one example of the consumerism that characterizes modern medicine. It illustrates that some couples struggling with infertility are no longer satisfied with just any child — they want a particular kind of child. The elderly person with a damaged knee or hip is no longer satisfied with a replacement that permits him to walk, he wants one that will allow him to downhill ski until he is ninety.

Abortion on demand represents another aspect of medical consumerism. Advocates of abortion rights market this right as if exercising it will guarantee happiness, and millions of women have bought into this belief to their own detriment. Abortion has become so institutionalized that opponents of the practice find themselves paying for them through their medical insurance premiums. Where I live, there is only one HMO that does not pay for abortions.