Bioethicist Urges Hospitals to Defy ICE

Mainstream bioethics discourse is often just progressive politics by a higher-brow name. Now, the Hastings Center — the world’s most influential bioethics think tank — has published an advocacy essay by Loyola University bioethicist Mark G. Kuczewski, who urges his colleagues to convince hospital administrators to thwart the attempts of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to arrest illegal aliens at their institutions.

Kuczewski laments the “fear” that the enforcement of immigration law is supposedly instilling in “immigrant communities,” somehow forgetting to note that whom he is really discussing are not immigrants in general but those here illegally. From “Supporting Patients and Students Who Are Immigrants: What to Do and Why Most Bioethicists Won’t Do It”:

A devastating wave of fear now permeates immigrant communities. The rhetoric and spectacle of mass deportations and the efforts to remove previously granted authorization to be in the United States have created a reactive panic in which people sometimes stay home from work and keep their children home from school. And as communities scramble to protect each other, they can become conduits for misinformation-filled rumors and further terrorize themselves. This situation has immediate negative consequences for the health of many people.

Assuming he is right, who’s to blame for that fearful circumstance: the enforcers of the law or those who came here illegally, and their enablers, who broke the law in the first place?

Kuczewski urges bioethicists to convince administrators to enact policies aimed at impeding ICE agents’ ability to arrest illegal aliens at hospitals:

Facilities need to implement or refresh their front door policies. These articulate the procedure for responding to an ICE request for information about a patient or to apprehend a patient. These policies typically designate an official who responds immediately and demands that ICE produce a judicial warrant to obtain information or gain entry.

Of course, ICE, like anyone else, can enter any public area on our campuses, such as waiting rooms, without authorization and subject patients to inquiries and potential intimidation. So, many front door policies include expanding the “private” areas that require authorization to enter and expediting the entry of patients into these areas. Information on these simple steps is readily available in online toolkits. . . .

Some toolkits, such as the Sanctuary Doctoring page that I helped create, also provide templates of resources that health care institutions and professionals can give their patients. For instance, know-your-rights trainings and information, available online, can and help patients to exert some control over their vulnerable situation. There are also a number of excellent online resources to help a family develop an emergency plan should the worst-case scenario occur. And health care providers can adapt the templates to their patients’ needs by adding links to local legal resources.

Kuczewski apparently thinks that hospitals should be the modern equivalents of medieval churches, where fugitives could go and attain “sanctuary.” But police arrest wanted people at hospitals all the time. Bank robbers, drunk drivers, etc., don’t receive special protection, so why should illegal immigrants be treated as a special hands-off category?

Kuczewski shames bioethicists for not embracing his political agenda to protect illegal immigrants:

I am sure that the great majority of bioethicists who have read this far agree with the logic and ethics of taking these steps in health care facilities, colleges, and universities. Given the health implications at stake, such steps have the status of duties, albeit imperfect ones. And the injustice of the political scapegoating and targeting of these populations heightens the case for empowering them to address their situation. Unfortunately, it is clear to me from past experience and current conversations with bioethicists that very, very few will engage in any activity to advocate for or implement such measures at their university or health system.

I hope he is right. Bioethicists should support law enforcement, not seek to thwart it in favor of a particular category of wrongdoer.

Voters elected President Trump because they want immigration law enforced. An essay published by one of the most important bioethics think tanks illustrates how the mainstream movement is increasingly hostile to the prevailing values of society.