Abstract
Medical ethics prohibits caregivers from discriminating and providing preferential care to their compatriots and comrades. In military medicine, particularly during war and when resources may be scarce, ethical principles may dictate priority care for compatriot soldiers. The principle of nondiscrimination is central to utilitarian and deontological theories of justice, but communitarianism and the ethics of care and friendship stipulate a different set of duties for community members, friends, and family. Similar duties exist among the small cohesive groups that typify many military units. When members of these groups require medical care, there are sometimes moral grounds to treat compatriot soldiers ahead of enemy or allied soldiers regardless of the severity of their respective wounds.
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Notes
An unpublished pilot survey of Israeli medics by Daniel Dakar in 2009 (n = 19) revealed that more than half (10) would treat a moderately wounded compatriot before a more seriously wounded enemy soldier or civilian. Carter found that only two-thirds of 600 US military physicians deployed during Desert Storm agreed that medical need should be the only criterion used for triage, and 22% agreed that POWs, that is, wounded enemy soldiers, no matter how severe their wounds, should only be treated after all allied forces are treated [1].
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Acknowledgments
My sincere thanks to Randy Howe without whose counsel the importance of the ethics of care would have gone entirely unnoticed.
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Gross, M.L. Comradery, community, and care in military medical ethics. Theor Med Bioeth 32, 337–350 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-011-9189-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-011-9189-6