Throughout the history of the development of medicine, the ultimate underlining goal has been
to reduce pain and suffering. Vaccines to prevent illness, painkillers to reduce pain, bandages to cover
wounds to prevent infections, surgeries under anesthesia are a few examples of how the study of
medicine has strived to improve life. However, as humans are far from perfect, medicine is also far from
perfect and there are side effects, or risks that many medical procedures have.
Recently I read an article from “theguardian” where the number of women who gave birth
addicted to opioids has quadrupled in the past 15 years. Opioids are a class of drugs that are commonly
used for pain relief. As we all know, conception is a painful process, which makes it a no brainer for the
conceiver to want to reduce that pain. However, there are stronger opioids and weaker opioids, and the
stronger ones can make one addicted even after 4 days of use. Not to mention that opioid usage can get
the baby addicted to opioids as well, causing them to have a withdrawal. This made me think of to what
extent should these drugs be monitored. In situations like these, how can we figure out what the real
issue is. Is it the doctors who prescribe the drugs, is it the government who allows these drugs, or is it
the fault of the users who didn’t follow the instructions? How do we know how much it should be
monitored without bordering on issues like problems like privacy.