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> The only ethical problem I see is other people deciding what life is worth living.

It’s more complicated than that. If there’s only 10 ECMO machines available in a hospital, someone has to decide who gets those machines. Like the entire field of medicine, triage is necessary and sometimes ethics dictate someone should not go on that machine based on their chances of survival.

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Even more complicated is debating if it's ethical to take someone off the machine if it leads to savings more people. I know triage and giving up on treatment has precedent, but I'm not too familiar with forced removal of on-going treatment, knowing it will kill someone.

I wouldn’t be surprised if combat medics are trained in triage ethics adjacent to this. Dumb example: you only have one tourniquet, and it’s on someone who will probably die, and suddenly you have another person who will only die if they don’t get that tourniquet.

Great example. I'm curious if anyone has experience with this or similar.

There's difference in removing a tourniquet from someone who will likely die even with the tourniquet verses taking someone off a machine who won't die while on it, but is permanently reliant on it.

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