Q&A: Preferring Vaccinated over Unvaccinated Patients – Organ Transplants and What Follows from That
Preferring Vaccinated over Unvaccinated Patients – Organ Transplants and What Follows from That
Question
Hello
This week the remarks of a heart doctor named Yaakov Lavee were published. He argued that he is promoting a policy of giving priority to people vaccinated against COVID over those who are not vaccinated when it comes to organ transplants (I think he was talking about lungs).
What is your opinion on the matter?
And if your answer is yes—why wouldn’t it then be legitimate to go one step further and agree to imprison them in isolated compounds, where they would have to provide for expensive resources themselves and sustain themselves on their own?
Why should we lend a hand to the livelihood of these murderers (in the spirit of the words of our honorable Prime Minister)?
Thanks in advance
Answer
I completely agree. I don’t understand how one could disagree with this at all. Just as priority is given to someone who signs an Adi donor card, certainly priority should be given to someone who made the required effort. And this is surely true in a situation where the state has decided to encourage people to do so because there is a problem that many are not doing it.
What do isolated compounds have to do with this? Is that a serious question?
They are not murderers in any sense. They chose what they chose, even if in my opinion with great foolishness. We just need to make sure they do not harm others.
Discussion on Answer
There is a big difference between the cases. The decision not to get vaccinated is a conscious decision by a person based on a principled policy of his own. Smoking or obesity are a surrender to impulse by people who basically do not want it. They are lapses. That is a big difference.
Still, I do not rule out preferring someone who took better care of himself, even if that was because of a lapse.
Of course, everything I’m saying here refers to a situation where there are two people in similar condition and under identical circumstances, and one of them has to be preferred. There is no justification for not treating a person at all because of his decisions. Dr. J. Lavee did not suggest that either.
Good morning
You wrote: “The decision not to get vaccinated is a conscious decision by a person based on a principled policy of his own. Smoking or obesity are a surrender to impulse by people who basically do not want it. They are lapses. That is a big difference.”
1. How do you know that all or most of those who decided not to get vaccinated made that decision only on the basis of cool-headed rational considerations? I, for example, know people who did not get vaccinated simply because they are afraid of side effects from a new vaccine that was approved (partially) through a fast and unusual track. Doesn’t that count as surrendering to the impulse of fear?
2. And conversely—there are people who smoke or eat excessively not out of surrender to impulse, but because they made a risk assessment and decided that the risk does not justify abstaining from the pleasures of life (in their view). After all, we all know people who smoked until around age 100 (for example Rabbi Shach, of blessed memory).
It’s not clear.
And in principle—in my view this is a very slippery slope that could lead to dark places.
You are right in principle. If there is someone who did not get vaccinated because of fear and not because of a conscious decision, he is similar to smokers and overweight people. Admittedly, it is strange that he is not afraid of the disease itself, but it is possible. I will note that, in my impression, these are not the majority of people. In any case, I am willing to accept that distinction. The same applies to smokers and overweight people.
As for the slippery slope, I have already written more than once that slippery-slope arguments are really not favorites of mine, and usually do not make much of an impression on me. It is pawning the certain present for the sake of an uncertain future. Maybe I’ll write a column about that someday…
Can one extend this in the same way to smokers, overweight people, and other people who do not take care of their health? (In cases where they do so intentionally and not under compulsion)