Can someone familiar with US law please tell me how this is even possible? In Germany, this would mean a massive constitutional crisis.
In reply to @orenwolf, I posted German news regarding the triage situation. @FGD135 provided additional links and a summary.
I would urge everyone in this topic to go there and read what they summarised, AND continues to update!
FTR: I read the statement by the national ethics commission yesterday, and it explicitly explains the implications on the rule of law in regard to a constitutional crisis if the state would be involved in the decision of a triage. (NB: Singular chosen on purpose, since a single case would be enough to trigger a massive legal and constitutional problem.)
And yes, @anon61221983, you are absolutely right. This is fascist. It needs to be stopped under all circumstances. This is something a state must not decide.
(Further thoughts, which might distract but I want to vent.)
Germans have done this during the Nazi time, as @beschizza already mentioned. The allies in WW II put a stop to it. The Nuremberg trials were an important step to realise where it leads when the state decides who lives and who dies. The US guaranteed they were fair and public. I can’t see anyone doing this in the future we are apparently heading for.
Someone, I think @DukeTrout, called for something like the Nuremberg trials against the Trump admin because of decisions which made the pandemic worse in the US. I argued, and argue still, that the steps so far are in the realm of politics which takes into account many variables, and different scientific, legal and economic advice which might be contradictory. No one has had the “right” decisions. There still is no data on many variables considering the epidemiology of the pandemic, so I was and I am warning against “blaming” the Trump or any other admin for the direct effects of rising infections due to post-fact wrong decisions.
But this is different. If the report is factual and complete, and I am not misunderstanding something because of my limited knowledge of the legal and ethical background of the policy roughly outlined in the
ProPublica piece.
I am still a bit careful here. I see no links to the states disasters preparedness plans. I also do not know how those would be implemented, what status in law they would have etc. Most of the piece gives a “human perspective”, as we would have called this in journalists schools back when I aspired to be a science journo. But if correct, then this must be stopped. This is evil.
