Age change in healthcare settings: a reply to Lippert-Rasmussen and Petersen

Abstract

Lippert-Rasmussen and Petersen discuss my ‘Moral case for legal age change’ in their article ‘Age change, official age and fairness in health’. They argue that in important healthcare settings (such as distributing vital organs for dying patients), the state should treat people on the basis of their chronological age because chronological age is a better proxy for what matters from the point of view of justice than adjusted official age. While adjusted legal age should not be used in deciding who gets scarce vital organs, I remind the readers that using chronological age as a proxy is problematic as well. Using age as a proxy could give wrong results and it is better, if possible, for states to use the vital information directly than use age as a proxy.

The complex case of Ellie Anderson

“…There is an ongoing debate both on how much chronological age matters when it comes to healthcare decisions22 23 and rights24 25 and whether adolescents can consent 26. We do not consider in detail whether Ellie’s age plays a role here.…”

“…As a male, it is unlikely she would have been able to access fertility treatment in the UK to have a child without a partner. viii There is an ongoing debate both on how much chronological age matters when it comes to health care decisions 23,24 and rights 25,26 and whether adolescents can consent. 27 We do not consider in detail whether Ellie's age plays a role here.…”

Social transition, socioeconomic status and self-rated health in China: evidence from a national cross-sectional survey (CGSS)

“…In this study, the control variables were categorized into three groups based on reference to existing studies. First, we controlled for variables that could lead to bias in social transition during data analysis, including respondents' gender (male = 1), age and the square term of age, the residential areas (rural = 1; urban = 0), marriage status (1 = married; unmarried and other = 0), and frequency of exercise over 30 min per week (58)(59)(60)(61). In the context of the era of information technology, and considering that the use of information technology may have a certain impact on the use of medical resources and the search for health information by Chinese residents (62), Internet use by respondents was controlled.…”

Iän virallinen muuttaminen tulisi sallia

“…Oikeus hylkäsi Ratelbandin vaatimukset, koska iän muuttaminen johtaisi sen mukaan monenlaisiin käytännön ongelmiin (BBC News 2018). Tästä huolimatta väitän, että on olemassa hyviä perusteita sille, että iän muuttaminen voitaisiin sallia -ainakin joissain tilanteissa (Räsänen 2019a).…”