The Future of Bioethics: It Shouldn't Take a Pandemic

The Covid‐19 pandemic has concentrated bioethics attention on the “lifeboat ethics” of rationing and fair allocation of scarce medical resources, such as testing, intensive care unit beds, and ventilators. This focus drives ethics resources away from persistent and systemic problems—in particular, t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Hastings Center report 2020-05, Vol.50 (3), p.54-56
Main Authors: Churchill, Larry R., King, Nancy M. P., Henderson, Gail E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Betacoronavirus
Bioethics
Bioethics - trends
Continental Population Groups
Coronavirus Infections - epidemiology
COVID-19
Health Care Rationing - ethics
health disparities
Health Status Disparities
Humans
pandemic
Pandemics
Pneumonia, Viral - epidemiology
SARS-CoV-2
social determinants of health
Social Justice - ethics
Socioeconomic Factors
structural injustice
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Summary:The Covid‐19 pandemic has concentrated bioethics attention on the “lifeboat ethics” of rationing and fair allocation of scarce medical resources, such as testing, intensive care unit beds, and ventilators. This focus drives ethics resources away from persistent and systemic problems—in particular, the structural injustices that give rise to health disparities affecting disadvantaged communities of color. Bioethics, long allied with academic medicine and highly attentive to individual decision‐making, has largely neglected its responsibility to address these difficult “upstream” issues. It is time to broaden our teaching, research, and practice to match the breadth of the field in order to help address these significant societal inequities and unmet health needs.
ISSN:0093-0334
1552-146X
DOI:10.1002/hast.1133