כשביואתיקה מיתרגמת לביופוליטיקה: התיעדוף בעת מגפת הקורונה כמקרה בוחן

Prioritizing medical care in situations of shortage is one of the classic bioethical dilemmas. The discussion on the issue of prioritization, which stood out at the beginning of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, arose following a report on the allocation of ventilators. When Israel was eventually not overloaded in a way that required prioritizing patients for ventilators, the question of prioritization seemed to be pushed behind the scenes, but in fact it turned from a clinical dilemma into a public health dilemma. This change highlights one of the salient disadvantages of current prioritization debates: the perception of scarce resources as pre-determined and inevitable. We argue that we need to reexamine the question of prioritization and to discuss it at the level of resource allocation. Moreover, understanding bioethical dilemmas as public issues can expose bioethics as another form of biopolitics.