Unweighted lotteries and compounding injustice: reply to Schmidt et al.
J Med Ethics
; 48(2): 131-132, 2022 02.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1207513
ABSTRACT
I argue that Schmidt et al, while correctly diagnosing the serious racial inequity in current ventilator rationing procedures, misidentify a corresponding racial inequity issue in alternative 'unweighted lottery' procedures. Unweighted lottery procedures do not 'compound' (in the relevant sense) prior structural injustices. However, Schmidt et al do gesture towards a real problem with unweighted lotteries that previous advocates of lottery-based allocation procedures, myself included, have previously overlooked. On the basis that there are independent reasons to prefer lottery-based allocation of scarce lifesaving healthcare resources, I develop this idea, arguing that unweighted lottery procedures fail to satisfy healthcare providers' duty to prevent unjust population-level health outcomes, and thus that lotteries weighted in favour of Black individuals (and others who experience serious health injustice) are to be preferred.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Health Personnel
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
J Med Ethics
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Medethics-2021-107395
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