Few of us are ever faced with making the sort of life-or-death decisions we routinely hear about in the news. Fortunately, most of us are spared from navigating the complex ethical terrain that headline-making cases sometime raise. And yet there are decisions we face everyday that — whether we realize it or not — have very real moral implications.

In Busted Halo’s Moral Dilemmas feature, we hope not only to raise some of these issues for our readers, but also to engage you in helping to resolve them. After going through the story of Jason Pascal that follows, please tell us through a one-question quiz, linked to at the bottom of the page, what you think is the “right thing to do.”

Already taken the quiz for part 1? Move on to the next step: “The Wrinkle” to our Moral Dilemma.

Already read parts one and two? Read our expert’s analysis of the dilemma and your responses.

The Dilemma

Michelle and Beth have been friends since they met in middle school. For Beth, who has two younger brothers, Michelle was like the sister she’d always wished for. They hung out together constantly, until Beth became like a member of the family.

Beth admired how Michelle blossomed while they were in high school. Michelle always seemed so confident and outgoing and received a lot of attention from boys while Beth was more introverted. Though she sometimes felt invisible compared to Michelle, they shared everything with each other, and Michelle depended on Beth to be honest with her no matter what.

When Beth’s parents split up while she was in college, Michelle spent countless hours on the phone consoling her and often took the four-hour bus ride from her college in Michigan to visit Beth at her school in Chicago.

Social studies

After graduation they both took jobs in the Chicago area and lived just a few blocks from each other in the Lincoln Park section of town. They continued spending a good deal of time together socially and even attended the same church. Michelle dated a lot of different guys but, by her late 20s, was starting to become frustrated that she hadn’t yet found someone special. Beth, on the other hand, dated very little until she met Thomas through an online dating site just after her 30th birthday. Michelle heard all about Thomas when she and Beth would talk on the phone or via email and she was happy to hear Beth so excited. It was clearly a big deal for Beth when she introduced Thomas to Michelle and she was thrilled that they seemed to get along so well. Beth even told Michelle that she thought they were falling in love.

Over the course of the next six months Beth and Thomas’ relationship became very serious and they began to talk about their long-term goals and plans. Michelle, however, began to be troubled by some of the things Beth would tell her. In the course of their conversations Beth mentioned that Thomas thought she could “stand to lose a few pounds” and would make comments about what she was eating and criticize her in front of others (Beth was 5’5″ and weighed 138 lbs). During an argument late one night at her apartment he opened the refrigerator and began throwing out some of the food he considered “part of the problem.” During another argument at a movie theater Thomas pushed Beth so hard against a wall that she hurt her shoulder.