Health Care Is A PrivilegeWhat happens when the standard for ethical medicine is subjective?
Adam Ellwanger
January 26, 2022
Most people have heard of the Hippocratic Oath. For thousands of years, newly minted physicians have taken some version of the oath, which is widely regarded as the foundational text in western medical ethics. Supposedly, the oath was written by Hippocrates, a physician in ancient Greece, but modern scholars are skeptical of this claim. Today, many believe that the oath contains the famous phrase “first, do no harm.” Early manuscripts don’t contain this phrase, although the oath does emphasize that a core obligation of medical practitioners is to avoid interventions that will worsen or complicate the health condition of patients.
Another common misconception is that American candidates for the degree of medical doctor (M.D.) are all required to take the oath. In fact, the oath has frequently been modified, paraphrased, edited, or ignored entirely. Indeed, many of the ideals expressed in the oldest versions of the oath would seem downright barbaric in an advanced society like our own. For example, the oldest manuscript of the Hippocratic Oath requires new physicians to promise not to participate in abortion procedures. Needless to say, that prohibition was aborted long ago.
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The same people who insist that health care is a human right are now providing care only at their discretion. Didn’t get the vaccine? You aren’t a priority. Expertise becomes entitlement: Being an “ethical” physician now means prioritizing the needs of certain patients based on arbitrary characteristics of their personhood (race, class, gender) or on the palatability of the patient’s politics in the eyes of the attending physician.
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Source:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/health-care-is-a-privilege/
