(American Spectator) – with the raging coronavirus pandemic threatening millions with infection, people are rightly worried that we could face the awful circumstance in which there are insufficient life-saving medical resources available for all catastrophically ill patients needing care.
If that dark day comes, decisions will literally have to be made as to who among the seriously ill will be given an optimal chance to fight for life under intensive medical care, and who may have to face a likely death, albeit under palliative care.
All over the country, doctors, bioethicists, policymakers, hospital administrators, and media commentators are discussing how to make such extremely difficult decisions if they become necessary. That’s proper and fitting. As the old saying goes, hope for the best and plan for the worst.
Moreover, it is wise to create a well-thought-out plan that can be followed consistently in awful contingencies to prevent ad hoc approaches that invite life-and-death decisions to be based on cronyism, discrimination, or other unjust non-medical factors. CONTINUE