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a cce s s H ea l t h N ews . n e t M a rc h 2 0 2 6 Volume 11 | Issue No. 104 10 aH Reproductive Rights: The Search For Common Ground I like to believe most people wish to make the world a be er place. I like to believe most people would say that everyone has value. I like to believe most people want the best for humanity and the planet we call home, even if we disagree about exactly what that means. And I like to believe those shared goals make it possible, even in today's violently polar- ized world, to have real conversation about our beliefs. Even as it becomes increasingly obvious how politics directly impact the health and safety of ourselves and our neighbors, our families and our friends, as more and more personal pain becomes a ached to hotly-debated topics, I believe in the power of political discourse from a place of mutual desire to make the world a be er place. Maybe that faith makes me an optimist, but believing common ground is impossible makes common ground impossible. Now, more than ever, we must at least try. Let me propose this, then, as our starting point: All people have value. We all ma er just because we're human. That statement sounds straightforward, but what does it actually mean to say that everyone has value? The answer to that question, I believe, holds the key to the common ground that today so desperately needs. The trolley problem is the most famous way to examine the question. It goes like this: a trolley is headed for five people who are stuck in its path. The trolley problem is what's called a "thought experiment," in which you are faced with an imaginary problem in order to measure what you instinctively feel is the right thing to do. When polled, the vast majority of people (around 90%) con- sistently choose to divert the trolley so that one person dies and five others live. Doing the most good for the most people seems obvious, but killing one to save five is not always the popular answer. In another thought experiment, a hospital admits six new patients: five in desperate need of organ transplants, and one perfectly healthy person. Should the surgeons kill the healthy patient and harvest those organs to save the lives of the five others? Here, very few people believe the right thing to do is kill the one to save the five — but if the math is the same, what's the difference? Though it may seem complicated, the answer is simple: We tend to disagree with treating people as a means to an end, instead of as ends unto themselves. In the trolley problem, we find sacrificing one to save five morally acceptable because diverting the trolley is what would save the lives of the five others. The death of the one person is a consequence of diverting it, not the means by which the five could be saved. If, instead, you had pushed someone in the way of the trolley to stop it before it killed the five people, then the pushed person's death would be the means by which you saved the five. Published in October 2022 The views expressed in this opinion editorial published by accessHealth News do not necessarily refllect the views, opinions, or beliefls ofl our advertisers.