We are now living in a time where we are instituting a sliding scale of deserving vulnerability and a terrifyingly dystopian approach to healthcare. If my pal in his 70s, with COPD and muscular dystrophy, gets coronavirus at the same time as me, he’ll be booted off the ventilator for my sake. That is as horrific for the person taken off the ventilator as it is for the one who must live with the fact that they were allowed to die so they could live. But this isn’t a gospel illustration making its way into all our sermons because the one allowed to die hasn’t voluntarily given up life-saving intervention for the sake of another, it is simply enforced by healthcare providers who determine their life was not as worthwhile.

Two recent news stories caught my eye in the midst of lock down. The first, on the BBC website, was headlined: Blind ‘not vulnerable enough’ for deliveries. You don’t need to read any further to get the gist. It reads exactly how it sounds. A blind couple are not classed as vulnerable enough to warrant food deliveries even though they cannot drive themselves to the supermarket.

But terrible as that may sound, it pales into insignificance when weighed against a Guardian article that opens with this terrifying comment:

Coronavirus patients with a poor prognosis could be taken off a ventilator even if they are stable or improving to make it available for someone else deemed more likely to survive, under guidelines drawn up by UK doctors.

We are now living in a time where we are instituting a sliding scale of deserving vulnerability and a terrifyingly dystopian approach to healthcare. If my pal in his 70s, with COPD and muscular dystrophy, gets coronavirus at the same time as me, he’ll be booted off the ventilator for my sake. That is as horrific for the person taken off the ventilator as it is for the one who must live with the fact that they were allowed to die so they could live. But this isn’t a gospel illustration making its way into all our sermons because the one allowed to die hasn’t voluntarily given up life-saving intervention for the sake of another, it is simply enforced by healthcare providers who determine their life was not as worthwhile. It is deeply troubling that utilitarian ethics remain alive and well.

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