Post by Deleted on Nov 17, 2020 19:57:49 GMT -5
If you value the elderly, you should be alarmed by Biden’s Covid task force appointment
Within days of being declared the presumptive winner of the presidential race, President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. had assembled a coronavirus task force that will, in his words, “help shape my approach to managing the surge in reported infections; ensuring vaccines are safe, effective, and distributed efficiently, equitably, and free; and protecting at-risk populations.” This is not a surprising development; it makes good on one of his central campaign promises, which was to construct a national Covid-19 strategy based on public health expertise that would finally bring this deadly pandemic under control.
The population most at risk of death from Covid-19 infections is the elderly. It is alarming, then, that President-elect Biden has chosen Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel to be a key player in guiding national policy as a member of his transition team’s Covid-19 task force. Although Dr. Emanuel is certainly a well-credentialed expert—a Harvard-trained physician and political philosopher, a prolific researcher in medical ethics, and the current chair of the department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania—his attitudes toward the elderly and disabled ought to be disqualifying. As a moral philosopher who often teaches Dr. Emanuel in my medical ethics courses at the University of South Carolina, I am dismayed by Mr. Biden’s choice.
Dr. Emanuel is widely known for his dismissive attitudes toward the elderly and disabled. In a 2014 article in The Atlantic, provocatively titled, “Why I Hope to Die at 75,” he describes elderly people as “no longer remembered as vibrant and engaged but as feeble, ineffectual, and even pathetic”; he therefore does not wish to be in their ranks for very long. His basic argument goes like this: Because of advances in medicine and technology, many Americans are living much longer than before. Dr. Emanuel questions whether this newfound longevity is positive because our elderly years are likely to involve disability and loss of function. Dr. Emanuel expresses a special horror at the prospect of cognitive disability, which he describes “as the most dreadful of all possibilities.”
When we become old, frail and dependent, Dr. Emanuel questions whether “our consumption is worth our contribution.” For Dr. Emanuel, it seems, a human life is valuable and meaningful to the extent that it is productive and creative; whereas children are potentially useful workers, old people are simply past their prime.
Even after facing widespread criticism, Dr. Emanuel did not temper his position. In a follow-up interview in 2019, he was asked about healthy elderly people who still enjoy activities like hiking, spending time with family or engaged in enjoyable hobbies. In response, Dr. Emanuel laments that “when I look at what those people ‘do,’ almost all of it is what I classify as play. It’s not meaningful work.” He goes on to conclude that if a person’s life is devoted to such activities it is “probably not a meaningful life.”
www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2020/11/17/joe-biden-covid-task-force-coronavirus-elder-care-ezekiel-emanuel?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=6408&pnespid=iPZrpudEDFWNozEIE43bouaU.9eFkRBHzyhTT51g
I was so upset that I forgot to place the reference. Read the rest. Bad enough that we have another pro choice President but the Church's Bishops has just created a special study group to look into Biden since he is Catholic and the press has already deemed him the 2nd Catholic President. In my estimation he is not Catholic since he is antithetical to the basic moral teachings of the Church. A special study groups means bury it in paper work and forget it we can work with him on other matters. Yeah like the environment! Bullshit. I am mad! I tried placing my arguments on American Magazine using some basic Theological and Philosophical positions that the Church holds to and bang it was banned. Idiots. Why!!! I know why but damn not fair guys. Faith/politics/theological/philosophical/ core beliefs. LOL
St Thomas Becket, pray for us!
Within days of being declared the presumptive winner of the presidential race, President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. had assembled a coronavirus task force that will, in his words, “help shape my approach to managing the surge in reported infections; ensuring vaccines are safe, effective, and distributed efficiently, equitably, and free; and protecting at-risk populations.” This is not a surprising development; it makes good on one of his central campaign promises, which was to construct a national Covid-19 strategy based on public health expertise that would finally bring this deadly pandemic under control.
The population most at risk of death from Covid-19 infections is the elderly. It is alarming, then, that President-elect Biden has chosen Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel to be a key player in guiding national policy as a member of his transition team’s Covid-19 task force. Although Dr. Emanuel is certainly a well-credentialed expert—a Harvard-trained physician and political philosopher, a prolific researcher in medical ethics, and the current chair of the department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania—his attitudes toward the elderly and disabled ought to be disqualifying. As a moral philosopher who often teaches Dr. Emanuel in my medical ethics courses at the University of South Carolina, I am dismayed by Mr. Biden’s choice.
Dr. Emanuel is widely known for his dismissive attitudes toward the elderly and disabled. In a 2014 article in The Atlantic, provocatively titled, “Why I Hope to Die at 75,” he describes elderly people as “no longer remembered as vibrant and engaged but as feeble, ineffectual, and even pathetic”; he therefore does not wish to be in their ranks for very long. His basic argument goes like this: Because of advances in medicine and technology, many Americans are living much longer than before. Dr. Emanuel questions whether this newfound longevity is positive because our elderly years are likely to involve disability and loss of function. Dr. Emanuel expresses a special horror at the prospect of cognitive disability, which he describes “as the most dreadful of all possibilities.”
When we become old, frail and dependent, Dr. Emanuel questions whether “our consumption is worth our contribution.” For Dr. Emanuel, it seems, a human life is valuable and meaningful to the extent that it is productive and creative; whereas children are potentially useful workers, old people are simply past their prime.
Even after facing widespread criticism, Dr. Emanuel did not temper his position. In a follow-up interview in 2019, he was asked about healthy elderly people who still enjoy activities like hiking, spending time with family or engaged in enjoyable hobbies. In response, Dr. Emanuel laments that “when I look at what those people ‘do,’ almost all of it is what I classify as play. It’s not meaningful work.” He goes on to conclude that if a person’s life is devoted to such activities it is “probably not a meaningful life.”
www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2020/11/17/joe-biden-covid-task-force-coronavirus-elder-care-ezekiel-emanuel?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=6408&pnespid=iPZrpudEDFWNozEIE43bouaU.9eFkRBHzyhTT51g
I was so upset that I forgot to place the reference. Read the rest. Bad enough that we have another pro choice President but the Church's Bishops has just created a special study group to look into Biden since he is Catholic and the press has already deemed him the 2nd Catholic President. In my estimation he is not Catholic since he is antithetical to the basic moral teachings of the Church. A special study groups means bury it in paper work and forget it we can work with him on other matters. Yeah like the environment! Bullshit. I am mad! I tried placing my arguments on American Magazine using some basic Theological and Philosophical positions that the Church holds to and bang it was banned. Idiots. Why!!! I know why but damn not fair guys. Faith/politics/theological/philosophical/ core beliefs. LOL
St Thomas Becket, pray for us!