[yholio]

Exposing a person's misery without their consent is usually not ethical, for example the last stages of someone dying of AIDS. There is nothing to be done and the person deserves some dignity in death.

That is not the same for someone in a critical but reversible or preventable state, their misery is intrinsically a public cry for help and relaying it is similar to shouting "someone is drowning over there", calling attention to their urgent need. For large scale, social issues, an argument can be made that the public good realized outweighs the rights of the anonymous individual used to ilustrate the issue.

As a species, we are hardwired to seek and react to such messages of vulnerability - hence the temptation for the first type of exploitative, undignified depictions of gore.