Fun Boy Three and Civil Disobedience

Long ago Pharaoh issued an edict that all new-born Hebrew boys were to by thrown into the Nile. This edict presumably was not in force for any great length of time - it doesn't seem to have applied to Moses's older brother Aaron, and at the time of the exodus from Egypt there was no shortage of Hebrew male adults. But whilst the edict was in force, two parents came up with a clever plan. They did what they were commanded and abandoned their baby in the Nile. But rather than throw him in, they placed him carefully amongst the reeds in a basket.

Civil disobedience in this case meant keeping to the letter of the law but not the spirit of the law. I'm not sure what moral to draw from this as I'm not feeling any great present need for civil disobedience. Perhaps there's a broader principle at stake: if you have to do something because there's no choice, it is still important to find the right way to do it because the way you do it can make a vital difference to the outcome. Or in the immortal words of Fun Boy Three, "It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it."