The pandemic has triggered a new debate over what used to be a settled principle of bioethics — that you don’t treat patients differently based on past behaviour that may have contributed to their condition.
“The core fundamental principle of clinical ethics tells us that once a person enters the hospital as a patient, whatever got them there is no longer part of the equation,” said Vardit Ravitsky, who teaches bioethics at the Université de Montreal and Harvard Medical School.
“The most extreme example I have ever seen was when I lived in Israel and a suicide bomber detonated on a bus, killing and
