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Full-Text Articles in Law
How To Compromise On Saving The Most Lives: A Commentary On Hellman And Nicholson, “Rationing And Disability”, David Wasserman
How To Compromise On Saving The Most Lives: A Commentary On Hellman And Nicholson, “Rationing And Disability”, David Wasserman
Washington and Lee Law Review Online
Deborah Hellman and Kate Nicholson’s “Rationing Disability” is a skillfully integrated analysis of the legal and ethical challenges of avoiding disability discrimination in setting priorities for the allocation of scarce lifesaving resources. Their analysis goes beyond the important but narrow question of what it means to wrongfully discriminate against people with disabilities in this context to the broader question of how to find a principled compromise between the consequentialist goals of public health and the potentially conflicting public value of “equal concern and respect” for each person. I will focus on this broader issue.
I agree with much …
Rationing And Disability: The Civil Rights And Wrongs Of State Triage Protocols, Deborah Hellman, Kate M. Nicholson
Rationing And Disability: The Civil Rights And Wrongs Of State Triage Protocols, Deborah Hellman, Kate M. Nicholson
Washington and Lee Law Review
The COVID-19 pandemic and the unprecedented natural disasters of 2020 remind us of the importance of emergency preparedness. This Article contributes to our legal and ethical readiness by examining state “Crisis Standards of Care,” which are the standards that determine how medical resources are allocated in times of scarcity. The Article identifies a flaw in the policy choice at the heart of the standards: the standards focus on saving as many lives as possible but, in so doing, will predictably disadvantage the ability of people with disabilities and racial minorities to access life-saving care.
To date, scholarly attention has focused …
Who Gets The Ventilator? Disability Discrimination In Covid-19 Medical-Rationing Protocols, Samuel Bagenstos
Who Gets The Ventilator? Disability Discrimination In Covid-19 Medical-Rationing Protocols, Samuel Bagenstos
Articles
The coronavirus pandemic has forced us to reckon with the possibility of having to ration life-saving medical treatments. In response, many health systems have employed protocols that explicitly de-prioritize people for these treatments based on pre-existing disabilities. This Essay argues that such protocols violate the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act, and the Affordable Care Act. Such explicit discrimination on its face violates these statutes. Nor can medical providers simply define disabled patients as being “unqualified” because of disabilities that do not affect the ability to ameliorate the condition for which treatment is sought. A proper interpretation of the …
May Hospitals Withhold Ventilators From Covid-19 Patients With Pre-Existing Disabilities? Notes On The Law And Ethics Of Disability-Based Medical Rationing, Samuel R. Bagenstos
May Hospitals Withhold Ventilators From Covid-19 Patients With Pre-Existing Disabilities? Notes On The Law And Ethics Of Disability-Based Medical Rationing, Samuel R. Bagenstos
Law & Economics Working Papers
Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, the threat of medical rationing is now clear and present. Hospitals faced with a crush of patients must now seriously confront questions of how to allocate scarce resources—notably life-saving ventilators—at a time of severe shortage. In their protocols for addressing this situation, hospitals and state agencies often employ explicitly disability-based distinctions. For example, Alabama’s crisis standards of care provide that “people with severe or profound intellectual disability ‘are unlikely candidates for ventilator support.’” This essay, written as this crisis unfolds, argues that disability-based distinctions like these violate the law. The Americans with Disabilities Act, the …