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INT. TELEVISION NEWS PROGRAM – NIGHT

Generic television anchor WANDA WILSON sits behind an anchor desk in a standard cable TV news set-up. The logo for UNN NEWS appears in the corner of the screen.

Across the bottom of the screen a news crawl: THANATOS VIRUS “MOST DEADLY AND INFECTIOUS EVER” — EXPERTS DOUBT CONTAINMENT CAN HOLD — POSSIBLE WORST PANDEMIC SINCE BLACK DEATH — YOUNG PEOPLE AND CHILDREN ESPECIALLY VULNERABLE

WANDA

And in tonight’s top story a huge controversy has broken out over a plan by a pharmaceutical company to allow a young woman to sacrifice her life in hopes of defeating the Thanatos virus. Tonight in a U-N-N News exclusive we have that young lady with us this evening.

The screen wipes to a split between Wanda and Toozie. Toozie is neatly made up, wearing a sweater and skirt with a strand of pearls.

WANDA

Lucy Chen, welcome to U-N-N News.

TOOZIE

Thanks, Wanda, I’m glad to be here.

WANDA

Ms. Chen, there has been a great uproar about what you propose to do.

TOOZIE

(holding up her hands for people to see)

Well, as you can see, Wanda, I’m not wearing any shackles and there is no gun pointed at my head. What I’m proposing to do I’m doing of my own free will.

WANDA

Many people claim that what you are doing is immoral, even if you are doing it of your own free will.

TOOZIE

I understand their concerns, but I also have an understanding of what is at stake here. If we don’t find a vaccine or a cure for the Thanatos virus, hundreds of millions of people may die.

WANDA

But don’t you have your whole life in front of you?

TOOZIE

Putting to one side the fact that I could die of this virus, don’t the hundreds of millions of children and young people who might die from it also have their lives in front of them? I’m just one person.

WANDA

Many, especially people with religious values, have argued that you have no right to commit suicide.

TOOZIE

I won’t debate the ethics of suicide. I’d rather sidestep them. People who are suicidal want to die. I don’t wan’t to die. What I want to do is save lives. There’s a long tradition of that, one that has roots in religious values. In the Gospel of John, Chapter 15, verse 13, Jesus tells his disciples “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Isn’t the fundamental command of all religions that we are to love one another?

WANDA

That is an interesting point, Ms. Chen.

TOOZIE

Here is another way to think of matters. We celebrate young men who go off to war as heroes, even though we know that they are taking a risk of being killed in battle. Sometimes they take more than a risk — consider a marine who leaps on a live grenade, shielding his fellow marines with his body even though he knows that it means the end of him. We don’t condemn him as an enemy of decency. We give him a posthumous medal of honor.

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