Moloch in the ICU

If we find ourselves in a position to save lives of the sick or injured, passing judgment on their character is morally repulsive. As a society, we do not expect – and should not accept – an assessment of a patient’s moral worthiness before wanting to lend urgent aid. Imagine a mass traffic accident overwhelming a small hospital’s emergency rooms. We could not accept a doctor looking around and demanding “Is this the drunk driver? Find me the drunk driver who did this so we can kick him to the back of the queue!”

In such an emergency, rushing to judgment looks like an abhorrent waste of precious moments that are far better spent on saving as many as can be saved. But the current COVID surge, and the impact of those who choose to decline a vaccine that could slow it, or worse, who work against efforts to protect lives in public spaces, makes ignoring the question of morality more abhorrent than the question itself might seem. Ignoring our moral obligations to each other does more than waste a few moments.

In February of 2020, a 56 year old man suffered a heart attack. As his wife described it, it was “one of those widow-makers” that would have killed him were it not for the timely and intensive care he received at the local hospital. Had he suffered his attack only two weeks later, the same hospital would have had no ICU beds for him because of the first COVID surge, and his wife would likely now be a widow. They avoided literal and emotional heart-break that day, but the decision the hospital staff would have faced in 2020 is not like the same decision if faced in 2021.

If wards and ICU beds overflow with patients, the majority of whom are unvaccinated, and if many of those are willfully unvaccinated, is it right that their “personal choices” cause the deaths of others? Others who, unlike them, thought and worked harder to cause no harm?

The angry pastor, denouncing the “crack smoking, demon-possessed, leftists,” does not know me. I am vaccinated, and I wear masks around others, but I do not smoke crack. Indeed, I do not smoke at all, and so I’ve never had to separate myself from others to protect them from the second-hand smoke of my personal choices. I am thereby cheaper to insure, and (hopefully) less likely to burden the healthcare system. We can agree on this for smoking, so why is it so hard for potentially transmitting a deadly disease?

As for leftists, politics should not come into this. Judges, who recently affirmed that a university’s vaccine mandate did not violate students’ rights, were all Republican appointees. This is only a politically divisive issue for those who choose to politicize it, and when they do, they lack credibility. They demand that a vaccinated society tolerate their presence, but somehow never propose to be separated from the rest of us. A person choosing to refuse a vaccine (as opposed to being unable to be vaccinated) is claiming a right to benefit from a herd immunity to which they refuse to contribute. They want to get whatever accommodation could be afforded to the genuine few who truly cannot be vaccinated. By demanding to participate in a largely vaccinated society, while remaining willfully unvaccinated, they choose to leave the rest of society to bear what they choose not to carry. They are like someone claiming to be libertarian at tax time and refusing to pay taxes, then also demanding free access to the public resources they refuse to fund.

The angry pastor, preaching hate and contempt for others, is wrong but nowhere near the top of my concerns. Followers weigh heavier on my mind. And politicians, similarly turning masks and vaccines into divisive wedges (and working against their own public health experts), have even larger flocks. They lead the millions who support and follow them down a dark selfish path, embracing the idea that individual convenience trumps the safety of those around them — seemingly, yet inexcusably, blind to the danger in which they place those more vulnerable than themselves. And what “freedom” is it that they demand when they reject others’ right to protect themselves? Is it the freedom to impose their presence upon others, free from responsibility, precaution, or fear of rebuke? Is it the freedom to risk others lives for their own convenience? Call it what it is, a freedom to threaten and endanger, and it is no longer the noble goal it pretends to be.

Even if we did not have over 48 million children in the US who cannot yet be vaccinated,  there will always be individuals who cannot choose the protection of a vaccine (e.g., the immunocompromised cancer patient, or people with dangerous allergies). Demanding that society accept your individual callousness is not just selfish, but is a dangerously immoral demand. So how can we reach those who cannot, or will not, see the threat, especially when they dress their wolves in a faux fleece of freedom and faith?

Following bad leaders, and being willing to sacrifice the vulnerable in the name of their false cause, has been the subject of cautionary tales, and moral admonishment, for centuries. Those admonishments have even been biblical (which is particularly painful given how many peddlers of medical disinformation seem to claim religious grounds for their dangerous beliefs). Milton’s 1667 description (from Paradise Lost) offers one disturbing, and particularly fitting, image: