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Hist Philos Life Sci · Jul 2021
Ageism in the COVID-19 pandemic: age-based discrimination in triage decisions and beyond.
- Jon Rueda.
- Department of Philosophy 1 and FiloLab-UGR Scientific Unit of Excellence, University of Granada, Granada, Spain. ruetxe@ugr.es.
- Hist Philos Life Sci. 2021 Jul 13; 43 (3): 91.
AbstractAgeism has unfortunately become a salient phenomenon during the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, triage decisions based on age have been hotly discussed. In this article, I first defend that, although there are ethical reasons (founded on the principles of benefit and fairness) to consider the age of patients in triage dilemmas, using age as a categorical exclusion is an unjustifiable ageist practice. Then, I argue that ageism during the pandemic has been fueled by media narratives and unfair assumptions which have led to an ethically problematic group homogenization of the older population. Finally, I conclude that an intersectional perspective can shed light on further controversies on ageism and triage in the post-pandemic future.© 2021. Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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