Steroids in Professional Sports How Many People

¶ … Steroids in Professional Sports

How many people here believe that adults should be allowed to risk their lives and health by participating in dangerous sports if they want to? How many people here believe that adult professional athletes should be allowed to lift weights to improve their strength? How many people here believe that adult professional athletes should be allowed to force-feed themselves to maintain body mass or to starve themselves to lose weight if necessary? How many people here believe that the outcome of professional sporting events does not matter outside of professional sports leagues? How many people here believe that professional athletes are appropriate role models for children?

Discussion

If adults have the right to risk their lives in dangerous sports; if professional athletes have the right to lift weights and to manipulate their diets to gain or lose weight; if the outcome of professional sporting events does not matter outside of the sports world; and if professional athletes are inappropriate models for children, nobody should care whether or not adult professional athletes take steroids.

In recent years, mounting evidence has made very clear that playing professional football is directly associated with shortened life expectancy and with early-onset Alzheimer's Disease, often in former NFL players as young as their late 40s or early 50s. Practically every year, race car drivers, horse racing jockeys, and amateur pilots die participating in sports. In the case of the latter, they do it as a recreational hobby and, as was just demonstrated this week in Reno, Nevada, sometimes at great risk to spectators as well. Our society values personal freedom and autonomy tremendously, which is why mentally competent adults are not prohibited from skydiving even though there is a risk of death or from sunbathing even though it is certain that unnecessary sun exposure is the major cause of skin cancer.

If professional athletes are permitted to participate in sports that involve short-term risk to life and limb and long-term risk of debilitating cognitive impairment, what is the justification for prohibiting them from taking steroids along with all of the other supplements they take to maximize their abilities? If the justification for prohibiting steroid use is paternalism, that is fundamentally inconsistent with all of the other risks that government allows adults to undertake both in and out of the sports realm? If the justification is fairness in sports, then would it not be fair to allow individual athletes to make the decision for themselves the same way they decide how much they want to eat and how much time they want to train? If the outcome of professional sports events has no relevance outside of the sports realm, what difference does it make to society who wins and how? Finally, if professional athletes generally behave in ways that do not make them appropriate role models for children, why would any parent encourage his child to idolize them in any way outside of their sports performance?

Conclusion