A truly awful but revealing conversation happened Wednesday morning on ABC’s The View, where the nearly all-liberal panel argued hospitals should turn away sick patients who did not take the COVID-19 vaccine.
After playing a clip of one Florida doctor saying she had “drawn a line in the sand” against treating unvaccinated individuals in person, the panel then brought up the larger issue of whether unvaccinated patients should receive medical care to begin with. Host Whoopi Goldberg suggested all doctors faced this moral “dilemma:”
"So this is an ethical dilemma apparently a lot of health care workers are facing right now,” she asserted.
But guest co-host and former congresswoman Mia Love (R-UT) had the first take and it ended up being the only logical one presented. She rightly pointed out how not treating certain patients was a dangerous slippery slope:
It's a slippery slope. I think it's a slippery slope when you start saying, okay. We're going to stop treating you because you haven't been vaccinated. It's -- you have to think, do we say that to people who have been smoking and they, you know, they've got emphysema? And do we really want people who are not vaccinated that are sick out there in the public untreated?
But far left co-host Joy Behar immediately jumped in to argue. She bent over backwards to insist that this was different:
I think you have a good point about it that it is possibly -- you could say to a smoker, ‘listen. You have been killing yourself or you have been eating yourself out of house and home and the obesity is killing you, whatever.’ But that's a long-term habit somebody has gotten into. This is a decision somebody makes based on false information. So I say if you have a case, go to Tucker Carlson and make your case because he's telling you lies. He and other people on Fox and on some parts of Facebook are telling you lies about the vaccine.
"Someone has chosen to defy the science. Someone has chosen to listen to the lies on Fox," Behar reiterated.
So does Behar really think the overwhelming majority of young black New Yorkers should be turned away from medical care because they're allegedly listening to Fox News lies?
But Love made a valid point. There are plenty of diseases that are caused by the lifestyle choices one makes. Not treating these patients would be ridiculous and immoral.
But the rest of the cohosts agreed with Behar.
"They've chosen to listen to the lies right? They've chosen a certain course," Hostin argued.
Fellow host Sara Haines was also disappointed that this practice probably violated the Hippocratic Oath:
I think it would violate the Hippocratic Oath so I don't think a doctor really can do it, but as an emotional reaction to this, I fear for the people who maybe are older or have health complications and are being turned away from emergency rooms, and that part breaks my heart.
Whoopi Goldberg was most upset about the unvaccinated “killing little kids” who weren’t eligible for the vaccine yet. She equated it to not putting a seatbelt on while driving.
“[I] you really feel like that, then don't put a seat belt on your kid!” she demanded.
But Behar has made this shocking argument before. Back in April of 2020 before there was a vaccine, she claimed any conservatives protesting against Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer's COVID lockdowns, should sign away their rights to medical treatment if they get sick.
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Read transcript portions below:
ABC's The View
09/08/21
11:17 a.m. EasternWHOOPI GOLDBERG: So this is an ethical dilemma apparently a lot of health care workers are facing right now. So what's your opinion? What's the right move?
MIA LOVE: It's a slippery slope. I think it's a slippery slope when you start saying, okay. We're going to stop treating you because you haven't been vaccinated. It's -- you have to think, do we say that to people who have been smoking and they, you know, they've got emphysema? And do we really want people who are not vaccinated that are sick out there in the public untreated? So I just think it's a slippery slope and we have to make sure we care for everyone.
JOY BEHAR: I think you have a good point about it that it is possibly -- you could say to a smoker, ‘listen. You have been killing yourself or you have been eating yourself out of house and home and the obesity is killing you, whatever.’ But that's a long-term habit somebody has gotten into. This is a decision somebody makes based on false information. So I say if you have a case, go to Tucker Carlson and make your case because he's telling you lies. He and other people on Fox and on some parts of Facebook are telling you lies about the vaccine.
LOVE: They're listening to them.
BEHAR: I have people in my family who say, I want to get pregnant and the vaccine could hurt my fertility. No. There is no evidence of this. They are hearing things all over the place that are false. So now you have cancer or you have to get a stent or what have you, and you're not able to get a bed because someone has chosen to defy the science. Someone has chosen to listen to the lies on Fox.
SARA HAINES: Well its also a pandemic and I feel like our health care workers have been sprinting a marathon, and the resources, they have been pulling all the weight. So right now is such a unique time where we're spread so thin. I think it would violate the hippocratic oath so I don't think a doctor really can do it, but as an emotional reaction to this, I fear for the people who maybe are older or have health complications and are being turned away from emergency rooms, and that part breaks my heart.
BEHAR: They have been lied to. My heart breaks for those people. You feel bad for those people. The perpetrators are the liars who are putting out this information.
SUNNY HOSTIN: They've chosen to listen to the lies, right? They've chosen a certain course…
(....)
HOSTIN: I do find that it's a very selfish thing because public health is a collaborative effort. You have to be your brothers' and your sisters' keeper. I struggle with this.
BEHAR: They never ask what's in the polio vaccine. What's in the smallpox vaccine?
WHOOPI: People do ask what's in the vaccines and doctors will tell you what's in it. I get agitated because there are 7-year-olds who can't get the vaccine.
(....)
WHOOPI: There are people who cannot get the vaccine, and y'all are fooling around. Whoa, you know, it's my right. Okay, but I don't care when it comes to killing little kids. [Emphatically] I have to hope that whoever you come into contact with doesn't kill you because they're busy protecting themselves! Now look, you know, if you really feel like that, then don't put a seat belt on your kid. Then don't ask for things that you think are going to make you feel better because this is the most basic thing in the world. We are our families' keepers. [APPLAUSE] And if you can't see that, just as a Christian, as a Christian, as a catholic, as a Jew, as a name another religion. Zoroastrianism, Muslim, if you can’t see that we are trying to protect each other, this is not going to end. We're going to keep doing this and doing this and doing this.
