Tragic Choices: Disability, Triage, and Equity Amidst a Global Pandemic

Journal of Philosophy of Disability 1:201-210 (2021)
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Abstract

In this paper, I make three arguments regarding Crisis Standards of Care developed during the COVID-19 pandemic. First, I argue against the consideration of third person quality of life judgments that deprioritize disabled or chronically ill people on a basis other than their survival, even if protocols use the language of health to justify maintaining the supposedly higher well-being of non-disabled people. Second, while it may be unavoidable that some disabled people are deprioritized by triage protocols that must consider the likelihood that someone will survive intensive treatment, Crisis Standards of Care should not consider the amount or duration of treatment someone may need to survive. Finally, I argue that, rather than parsing who should be denied treatment to maximize lives saved, professional bioethicists should have put our energy into reducing the need for such choices at all by resisting the systemic injustices that drive the need for triage.

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Joseph A. Stramondo
San Diego State University

Citations of this work

Bioethics, Philosophy, and Philosophy of Disability.C. Dalrymple-Fraser - 2022 - American Journal of Bioethics 22 (12):64-66.

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