Such developments trouble skeptics worried about the repercussions for patient care and for the training of physicians. They say the moral fervor reduces complex policy to simplistic slogans and indiscriminately blames all racial disparities on a nebulous menace – white supremacy or systemic racism – while discounting the influence of cultural differences and individual initiative. It then attacks the perceived problem through blunt weapons as such racial preferences, ideological conformity and emotional blackmail.
“The fundamental problem with social justice in public health is that there are no limiting principles to it,” American Enterprise Institute senior fellow and author Sally Satel wrote in the journal Liberties this year.
“Differences of any kind — in income, education, school performance, and, of course, health — are manifestations of racism and racism alone,” Satel wrote. “The practice of ‘equity,’ the enactment of critical race theory, permits, if not endorses, unequal treatment of the dominant group in order to arrive at equal group outcomes, even if it is to the detriment of ailing individuals.”
Satel is among those who doubt equity is attainable, given the complex underlying factors that shape human health. But some medical ethics experts are pushing in the other direction and going so far as to argue that equalizing group outcomes between blacks and whites may necessitate tolerating a greater loss of life.
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