Bankruptcy - Legal vs. Moral
I recently heard conservative talk show host Dennis Prager speak of how he has never understood the concept of bankruptcy as it is currently employed in our country. He acknowledged that he did agree that people in serious debt should be given a chance to get back on their feet and reorganize financially without fear of losing their homes, vehicles and other needed assets. But once they are back on their feet, he questioned why they should be freed from their obligations. Why should filing bankruptcy make someone's debts null and void?
I agree with his point, to a point. He felt that there was confusion between what is legal and what is moral. I believe that is a valid assessment of many things in our country that might be legal but not necessarily moral. On the question of bankruptcy, I do think there should be room to evaluate on a case by case basis.
When new bankruptcy laws went into effect a few years ago, it supposedly made reformations that would prevent abuses by people looking for an 'easy out' from their responsibilities. I am not familiar with what the changes were specifically but I understand that people filing bankruptcy today are subject to much stricter conditions as to their obligation to their creditors.
Perhaps it is due to my experience as a pastor's wife, but it is hard for me to say that filing bankruptcy is always immoral. I think of one female parishioner who was in her early eighties who lived with her son who was in his late forties and in a wheelchair. When faced with difficult financial problems, there was no "getting back on his feet" (to use Dennis Prager's term) either physically or financially.
For many others, the decision to file comes on the heels of a devastating medical emergency or chronic disease for which they are un or under-insured. While it is easy for those of us with good insurance to smugly say, "Well, they should have planned better" I have had conversations with parents of critically or terminally ill children who had no way to plan better for the heart-rending situation in which they find themselves with hospital debts sometimes exceeding a million dollars.
So while I am in general agreement with Dennis Prager's view that bankruptcy should be avoided, I am hesitant to sit in judgment and declare that is is always immoral.
The best solution for those who do have the ability to work and get back on their feet financially is to seek Debt Relief from a company willing to negotiate with their creditors. Freedomdebtrelief.com offers a program that can drastically reduce the amount of your outstanding debt by working directly with your creditors. Unlike many consumer credit agencies who actually work on behalf of credit card companies, debt relief companies only make money by saving you money. Bankruptcy does carry a stigma and represents a blot on your credit history that will last for many years. Every effort should be made to take responsibility when humanly possible.
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