PEDIATRICS Vol. 56 No. 2 August 1975, pp. 186
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FREE WILL, ETHICS, AND HEALTH CARE

R. J. H.

In a recent volume1 Arrow takes the libertarian view that individuals can and should make a free choice of whether and when they want to get medical care, when given all the information.

Pellegrino comments on the limitations of this libertarian view: (1) We are not isolated individuals but social beings whose actions effect others as well as ourselves. (2) Society has now said that it will care for people when sick. But if they are sick because of what they willfully did then should society not provide care? For children it is difficult to argue that they should be punished for their parents' failings. (3) The sick person's ability to deal with "all" the facts is limited, especially so for children. Pellegrino advocates an ethical view of the right to medical care as well as a legal one. " . . . law is the coarse adjustment that guards against the grosser violations of human rights; ethics is the fine adjustment that sets a higher ideal than law can guarantee." It would seem that children should have the right to medical care.