Regular readers of this column (bless you and Happy Holidays) know that one
of your Medicine Men, has two great passions in life, besides family,
country, medicine and a great cup of coffee every time.
Justice and sports.
Or, for purposes of this column: lawyers and steroid laden athletes.
It has long been apparent that greed has suborned the purity of both justice
and athletics. Greedy lawyers and predatory lawsuits; greedy athletes and
their agents and employers and the corporations who pay them obscenely to
shill, i.e. to endorse their products. But it wasn't until the release of
the Mitchell report on the use of steroids in professional baseball that we
got to thinking more deeply about what justice and sports, lawyers and
athletes have in common besides greed.
The American legal system, as it has evolved, aims at an abstraction called
justice through the creation of an artificial universe in which two sides
contend. Although there are fundamental differences between plaintiffs and
prosecutors and defendants, the same rules apply. In a courtroom, where
procedures are rigid and rules are clear, the clash of opposites is presumed
to yield truth, as determined by an impartial judge or a jury of peers, and
truth in turn makes justice possible.
All fine in theory. But as the adage goes, never confuse the rulebook with
the game.
It is not presumed that both sides have lawyers of equal ability or equal
resources to bring to the task. It is not presumed that some lawyers won't
work closer to the edge of the permissible than others. It was once presumed
that lawyers, while fighting for their sides, will keep in mind the fragile
and precious nature of the artificial universe in which they operate. They
should not regard the courtroom merely as a way of making or "extorting-
money, or of scoring political points or staging spectacles to play on the
ignorance and biases of juries.
And if you believe that . . .
In like measure, the playing field is an artificial universe, bounded by
strict rules and procedures. As in law, there is no assumption that the
contending individuals or teams have equal abilities or resources. There is
an assumption that their competitive clash will produce a result as hard to
define as justice: excellence. In the past, this excellence has gained its
practitioners everything from the favor of the gods to the favors of the
cheerleaders, and wealth has often been part of that excellence. But the
purpose of the contest remains within itself, and in the hearts and minds of
the players and observers.
Sports ideally should be a competition based on pure athletic meritocracy
and eventually decided by inequalities. But the field must be kept level for
all athletes.
Which brings us to steroids and why they're bad for athletics at any amateur
or professional level.
First, let's rebut the standard argument, "It's my body and I can do what I
want with it." Yes, so long as no one else is involved. By taking steroids,
some athletes force others to do so in order to compete. At the highest
levels, the difference between making the team and going home, between
superstar status and merely being very good, is often astonishingly small.
Steroids provide an artificial edge, but an edge that exacts a terrible
price off the field and later in life, inevitably affecting others.
And there is a fundamental difference between accepting the risk of injury,
even death, as part of the game, and taking drugs that will inevitably
destroy long after the game is over.
Then there's the economic argument. The rewards of professional athletic
success are now so obscenely large that an athlete can
"rationally" choose them over long life, a choice especially popular among
the young and strong who've yet to conceive of their own mortality. In
different contexts, Achilles, Faust and others made similar choices. But how
many of us, I wonder, would consciously make such decisions in our own
lives: wealth and fame in exchange for a truncated mortality.
Is it heroic? Does it matter what you do to succeed, so long as you do?
Currently civilization says yes. A tragic choice that we all need to think
about.
Editor's Note: Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D., comments on medical-legal issues and is a
visiting fellow in Economics and Citizenship at the International Trade
Education Foundation of the Washington International Trade Council. Robert
J. Cihak, M.D., is a senior fellow and board member of the Discovery
Institute and a past president of the Association of American Physicians and
Surgeons.
