Ezekiel Emanuel, tapped for Biden’s coronavirus task force, has controversial views on aging
By David Ian Klein November 10, 2020
Joe Biden’s consideration of former White House chief of staff and Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel for a cabinet position has triggered complaints, and so has the appointment of Rahm’s brother Ezekiel as a member of the coronavirus advisory board.
An renowned oncologist and bioethicist, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel chairs the medical ethics department at the University of Pennsylvania’s College of Medicine. He, Rahm and brother Ari, a Hollywood agent, are the sons of a Jerusalem-born doctor who fought in Menachem Begin’s Irgun militia during the British Mandate period in Palestine.
However, Emanuel’s role on the board has garnered controversy due to a 2014 article he penned in the Atlantic. In it, Emanuel wrote that he hopes to die at the age of 75, as he believed that life past that point “renders many of us, if not disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived.”
The choice has drawn furor from the right.
“Dying at 75 will not be a tragedy.”
– @JoeBiden’s COVID task force pick, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, on why life is not worth preserving after 75
— Kayleigh McEnany (@kayleighmcenany) November 10, 2020
The disability community is likewise deploring the move.
Ezekiel Emanuel has no place on any board or in any position that affects any disabled person. He has expressed his eugenicist ideas time and time again.
— Laura Dorwart (@laurawritesit) November 9, 2020
As someone who has taught medical ethics for the past seven years, the appointment of Ezekiel Emmanuel to the the virus task force is is both not surprising and basically horrifying. ?
— Jennifer A. Frey (@jennfrey) November 9, 2020
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
