14 ms·
>“The key principle in medicine is to treat anyone who is sick, regardless of who they are,” said Arthur Caplan, a bioethics professor at New York University. “
by emptyparadise 5y ago
>“The key principle in medicine is to treat anyone who is sick, regardless of who they are,” said Arthur Caplan, a bioethics professor at New York University. “We are not in the business of sorting sinners from saints. Crime is a legal matter.”
This is so simple and newspapers trying to make it into a matter for debate is actually compromising that.
- foo92691 5y ago"The New York Post (NY Post) is a conservative[8] daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The Post also operates NYPost.com, the celebrity gossip site PageSix.com, and the entertainment site Decider.com." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Post https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Post
- LAC-Tech 5y agoWhat was the purpose of posting this?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jessriedel 5y agoThe NY Times and Washington Post also had silly articles that presented this as a serious debate.
- woodruffw 5y agoI don't remember WaPo's article, but the NYT article that I read didn't mention any ethical issues or the recipient's past[1]. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/10/health/heart-transplant-pig-bennett.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/10/health/heart-transplant-p...
- jessriedel 5y agohttps://mobile.twitter.com/Jess_Riedel/status/1481796209815683074 https://mobile.twitter.com/Jess_Riedel/status/14817962098156... https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/01/13/pig-heart-transplant-stabbing-david-bennett/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/01/13/pig-heart... https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/13/health/pig-heart-transplant-bennett.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/13/health/pig-heart-transpla...
- woodruffw 5y agoThanks for linking that. I hadn't seen that article, and I'm disappointed to see them highlight his past in that manner.
- davidw 5y agoThe https://twitter.com/DougJBalloon https://twitter.com/DougJBalloon tweets write themselves. "This felon was given a pig heart. Here's why that's a problem for ..."
- benatkin 5y agoI try to avoid NY Post, but sometimes forget. Still, it's a true story afaik.
- ekianjo 5y ago
- mlyle 5y ago> This is so simple and newspapers trying to make it into a matter for debate is actually compromising that. Even if one were to consider moral character when allocating organs in general: the researchers needed someone who was sick and likely to die, ineligible for human organ transplant (here, because of severity of condition), and not so sick that there was no chance of success or useful data. So, we're already picking someone who doesn't meet the normal rules. And, of course, considering moral character when allocating organs probably isn't a great idea.
- fennecfoxen 5y agoYeah, the Post complaint (echoed elsewhere) is basically a call for having a social credit score that can say “you’re not a good person, so we’re not going to let the doctors save you.”
- rob74 5y ago...and the next step would be "we're not going to treat you for Covid because you're not vaccinated".
- achow 5y agoThis is not same. The non vaccinated are actively choosing to be a danger to people around them. It is like actively carrying concealed unlicensed gun which can silently and anynomously fire at people.
- rob74 5y agoI'm vaccinated myself and basically I have the same opinion as you. But David Bennett also actively chose to stab someone seven times in 1988 - "only" leaving him paralyzed, but probably with the intent to kill him? Ok, he probably served time for that and it was a long time ago, so judicially you can consider him rehabilitated. My argument was that once you refuse to treat (former) criminals, that's a slippery slope. And apparently I was right, since some here seem to consider people who choose not to get vaccinated worse that violent criminals...
- burrows 5y ago> The key principle in medicine is to treat anyone who is sick, regardless of who they are. The victims family is saying “Our principle is that people who stab Ed should not get a heart, therefore David should not get a heart.” The doctor is saying “Our principle is that we don’t use the patient’s past violence or convictions to determine whether they should get a heart or not, so the stabbing doesn’t disqualify David.” Neither party can offer a valid argument as to why their principle is true, because both of their principles are normative.
- CamperBob2 5y agoPeople who commit crimes should not get a heart can be transformed to Only people who have not committed crimes should get replacement hearts. The problem is, who hasn't committed crimes? Which crimes count? Who decides? That question makes the more-topical issue When the ER fills up, should unvaccinated people be treated by administering carbon monoxide in the hospital parking garage? look trivial to resolve, in comparison.
- stult 5y agoSeems pretty damn simple to me. If you wouldn’t put someone to death for a crime, you shouldn’t deny them medical care in a manner that will kill them for the same crime. It’s functionally and legally the same as putting them to death. Withholding necessary medical care is the same as withholding food, water, air, or shelter.
- creato 5y agoWe deny people waiting for organ transplants medical treatment regularly. there simply aren't enough organs to go around. In the case that people are already having life saving organs withheld from them, it makes sense to prioritize. I think people have the ethical issue in this case backwards: the reason this guy got this transplant is because it was an experiment. We effectively used an ex-con as a guinea pig. (Personally, I'm fine with that, he was fully aware and consented, it was his only chance.) If this guy had died due to the experimental heart failing, we'd probably be seeing a bunch of op-eds about our moral failure to prevent exploitation of a vulnerable (ex-)prison population.
- smrtinsert 5y agoIs there a limit to this impartiality? Should we have saved Hitlers life with a breakthrough transplant?
- unmole 5y ago> Is there a limit to this impartiality? No. > Should we have saved Hitlers life with a breakthrough transplant? Yes. It really is not complicated: Doctors are not in the business of judging their patients.
- siva7 5y agoIt’s not that simple. Doctors judge, at least in their own mind and that influences survival decisions.
- d110af5ccf 5y ago> Doctors judge, at least in their own mind and that influences survival decisions. That isn't intentional or desirable though. It's a flaw. Doctors are people and people are imperfect.
- corobo 5y agoWhat happens if you decide to not transplant because of their past but it turned out they were wrongfully convicted? To the top of the transplant list immediately pushing others down or “ohh.. awkward. we’ll treat you fairly from now on”?
- dghlsakjg 5y agoIf he follows the same protocol and gets considered under the same criteria, yes. Doctors making moral judgements and withholding treatments based on their patients lifestyle has a pretty ugly history.
- xupybd 5y agoI would suggest the following limit, unless the state has already sentenced to death. We have a justice system to make these calls. Let the doctors treat everyone and the justice system decide who lives and dies.
- yboris 5y agoSide-comment that doesn't apply in this case, but worth mentioning: "regardless of who they are" seems like a shitty blanket principle to have. For example, hospitals are overstuffed with COVID patients means regular patients die as a result. In many cases, "The overwhelming majority of the patients had COVID-19, and 98% of those needing acute critical care were unvaccinated." This means people who choose to not take the vaccine are causing others to die. So the unvaccinated should be thrown out when a patient in need comes and no beds are available. https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/health-care-priority-for-vaccinated-covid19-patients-by-peter-singer-2022-01 https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/health-care-pri...
- bostonsre 5y agoIt's a slippery slope.. I think the uneducated are less likely to be vaccinated and it doesn't seem right to refuse service to someone because they believed something that was incorrect. Say there were people with mental handicaps that fell in this camp, it would be even worse. And where do you draw the line for who gets help for stuff unrelated to covid? Having a do no harm type moral code seems like the best way to navigate and avoid the minefield of deciding who deserves care in what circumstances.
- account42 5y agoEven simpler: By refusing treatment based on choices stemming from mistrust of the system you are validating that mistrust.
- yboris 5y agoConsider a hypothetical scenario: there is a fire in the woods and the government says "do not go into the woods". People choose to go to the woods and return as burnt victims. Hospitals should help these individuals, but if they fill up 100% of the hospital beds and we need to turn people who got hurt due to accidents who then die, the fault is on those who chose to go into the dangerous woods. It may be the case that implementing a policy of vacating beds of burn victims is too challenging, but that doesn't undermine the "should" in the "we should vacate beds of voluntarily hurt when accidentally hurt need the beds".
- bsder 5y agoIt is even simpler than that. Someone who has served their time in prison and is now released is considered to have paid their debt to society. You may think, as I do, that this man served nowhere near what he should have for the crime he committed. However, the law has been followed and he is no longer in prison. If the people the New York Post is targeting think that he should still be punished, then he should still be in prison. The problem is that the type of people clamor for these people to stay in prison also are at the forefront of refusing to pony up the money to pay for that prison.
- MisterMower 5y agoMy experience has been that the kind of people that want longer prison sentences for folks like this are more than willing to tolerate higher taxes to pay for them.
- ianhawes 5y agoLet’s not pretend that the budget of prisons has any bearing on a man that was dutifully convicted and sentenced by a judge. The bigger issue IMO is that the killer never paid any of the monetary judgement against him to the victims family.
- inglor_cz 5y agoI do not want to sound like a person who would deny ex-prisoners medical care (I wouldn't), but legal disabilities even today do not end with your release from prison. For example, felons in the US are banned from owning guns even after they served their time. Do you consider that good or bad?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- bsder 5y ago> For example, felons in the US are banned from owning guns even after they served their time. I'm not a big fan of that, but I would prefer that it reflect the harm done from the crime and the statistics surrounding recidivism. A simple drug possession offense should not warrant banning you from voting or guns when you are done. If you were convicted of an armed robbery, maybe the guns should be banned. I really don't like the idea that once you're done with the justice system it continues to punish you. Once you are done with it, you should be done--especially if the crime was "victimless" (ie. something like drug possession where the only harm would be to yourself). This becomes a significant issue in, for example, sex offenders. Some places have so many restrictions on sex offenders that, for all intents and purposes, they cannot comply with probation and cannot function in society. Well, if you're going to do that, at least be honest that you are simply "executing them on the cheap and out of sight" and either keep them in prison or execute them explicitly. This is one of the problems with low-level drug convictions--the "felony" conviction becomes a poor man's "social discredit" system. And most of us from Western democracies understand pretty solidly why "social credit" systems are pernicious.
- cguess 5y ago
- inglor_cz 5y agoWell, the Zeitgeist of the social networks is "destroy the sinner mercilessly and crush him into dust" plus "whoever does not take part in that crushing or even advocates for mercy is suspicious himself". And too many journalists are on their social network accounts every waking hour, so it seeps through. I suspect that quite a lot of people would support denial of medical care to sinners. For example, the sentiment of "triage against the unvaxxed" seems to be pretty strong. (For the record, I am fully vaxed but do not support mistreatment of people who believe in conspiracy theories.)
- bertil 5y agoWhat you see on social networks is a reflection of who you choose to follow and engage with. I use social networks to engage with people who actually make those decisions and they do not encourage any of that.
- inglor_cz 5y agoWell, we are talking about journalists ("blue dots"), and their choices are their matter ... https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/04/twitter-is-not-america/587770/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/04/twitt...
- bertil 5y agoDenying medical care is made either by individual health care professsionals or, in cases that require more consideration, health services ethics commity. I’d be surprised is anyone stating what you said would keep their medical license, let alone would be allowed to sit in a commitee.