Followup on "Economists & bioethicists"

Over on Slate, where I cross-posted a slightly edited version of the post below, I’ve received the following thoughtful comment from ElrohirAmroth:

“This case seems to have had no media attention until after she died... We don't know what the Bush Whitehouse or even the Texas governor might have done to stop this because we don't know that they knew anything about it... absent any evidence that Bush or others knew of the case and chose not to act, the hypocrisy charge is spurious.”

To which I’ve replied:

Your comments strike me as reasonable to a point.

Clearly neither Bush nor Governor Perry knew about this case in advance. But the Texas law that Bush signed has been the subject of widespread discussion since the Schiavo case hit the national news, if not sooner. Bush consulted with right-to-lifers before signing the law, and after a certain amount of tweaking, they signed off on it -- even though it was clear that it would lead to sentient people being taken off life support for purely financial reasons.

In the weeks since this woman has died, I've heard nobody in the Christian right raise the issue of making sure something like this never happens again. I'd welcome someone pointing out information to the contrary. Failing that, I think it is quite fair to raise the issue of hypocrisy.

Nor have I heard anyone on the right raise any concerns about fairness (here, or ever). Surely there are broader ethical issues associated with making life-and-death decisions like these based on ability to pay. How those ethical issues are ultimately decided, I'm not sure. I would never tell you they are easy.

But they deserve more attention, from both the left and the right -- including, one would hope, from those who staked out such a prominent public position on the Schiavo case, and based their position on their faith. Arguably that's what Landsburg was trying to do here. I would be tempted to credit him with courage if his moral sense wasn’t so crabbed. To write, as Landsburg does, that

"Accounting for 'economic considerations' means—by definition—trying to give people what they'll value the most. In other words, economic considerations are the basis of true compassion.."

ignores so much as to be truly incredible. Not least: that the tradeoffs poor individuals must make every day are extremely different from those that Mr. Landsburg and I face from our places of privilege in this society.