Tragic Choices, Revisited: COVID-19 and the Hidden Ethics of Rationing
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, concern that there could be a shortage of ventilators raised the possibility of rationing care. Denying patients life-saving care captures our moral imagination, prompting the demand for a defensible framework of ethical principles for determining...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | |
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
2022
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| In: |
Christian bioethics
Year: 2022, Volume: 28, Issue: 1, Pages: 58-75 |
| IxTheo Classification: | KBQ North America KDB Roman Catholic Church NCC Social ethics NCH Medical ethics ZC Politics in general |
| Online Access: |
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| Summary: | Early in the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, concern that there could be a shortage of ventilators raised the possibility of rationing care. Denying patients life-saving care captures our moral imagination, prompting the demand for a defensible framework of ethical principles for determining who will live and who will die. Behind the moral dilemma posed by the shortage of a particular medical good lies a broad moral geography encompassing important and often unarticulated societal values, as well as assumptions about the nature and purpose of health care and the consequences of long-standing choices about health care as a social good. This article explores what COVID-19 has exposed concerning values and choices around health care in the United States. Employing the lens of Catholic Social Thought, it argues for an approach to rationing that is grounded in respect for human dignity, committed to distributing social goods in light of the common good, and self-conscious about the construction of vulnerability to illness and death. |
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| ISSN: | 1744-4195 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Christian bioethics
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/cb/cbab019 |