Concierge physician for the Khmer Rouge

I did a post responding to a comment by progressive theologian Randal Rauser:

https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2019/03/selective-treatment.html

Here's his attempted rebuttal:

https://randalrauser.com/2019/03/pelagian-calvinism/

The first problem with Hays’ “rebuttal” is that the doctor’s behavior would constitute a gross breach of the Hippocratic Oath. Sadly, Hays doesn’t seem too worried about that! (Perhaps he should consider taking a class in bioethics before invoking more doctor analogies?)

i) I reject Rauser's illicit argument from authority. Unlike him, I don't regard what is taught in modern medical ethics as the touchstone of morality. Nowadays, the bioethics community in medicine promotes eugenic abortion, puberty blockers and sex-change operations for gender dysphoric minors, the voluntary and/or involuntary euthanization of the senile, comatose, developmentally disabled, organ-harvesting "vegetative" patients, &c. That's documented by Wesley J. Smith, among others. For instance:

https://www.discovery.org/human/

Unlike Rauser, I don't issue a blank check to whatever med students are taught in their bioethics class. But that's just me.  

ii) For those of us who don't suffer from Rauser's moral superficiality and giddy capitulation to the Zeitgeist, there's the question of whether professional ethics obviates our general social duties. Is a doctor a doctor first, or is he a moral agent first and foremost, with preexisting duties that transcend professional ethics? 

Take a doctor or prospective doctor who's a husband, father, brother, son, and friend. When he becomes a doctor, does his medical code of conduct supersede his prior social obligations, or do those remain in force? In case of conflict, do general social obligations continue to take precedence over professional ethics? 

In my counterexample, if the physician administers the antidote to the Khmer Rouge as well as other Cambodians, the Khmer Rouge will go right back to killing Cambodian citizens. 

Suppose I'm not a doctor. Suppose I run across a wounded Khmer Rouge soldier who will die of his injuries without medical intervention. I know that if I seek treatment for him, he will resume murdering families. Murdering women, children, grandparents, &c. If, as a private citizen, it would be wrong for me to be an enabler of the Khmer Rouge, when I'm in a position to avoid that, does my becoming a doctor automatically nullify my prior social obligations? Does donning a stethoscope and white jacket suddenly make morally obligatory what had been morally prohibitory? That's the kind of question that morally serious thinkers ask–in contrast to progressive theologians who substitute moral preening for right and wrong. 

You can argue that physicians have a prima facie duty to treat all patients alike. However, like so many rules, it's becomes amoral when we robotically obey our man-made rules, when we imagine that mechanically following man-made rules absolves us of the duty to take salient differences into consideration. There's nothing moral about a morally indiscriminate policy. We should treat people equally, all other things being equal. But moral agents can do things that forfeit their prima facie rights and immunities. Mass murderers aren't entitled to the same treatment as innocent victims. If Rauser lacks the conceptual space for that elementary distinction, then so much the worse for his progressive theology. The moral imperative isn't a simplistic policy to treat everyone alike, regardless–but to treat like things alike and unlike things unalike. Is the Khmer Rouge solider who puts a bullet in the back of a child's head entitled to the same deference and consideration as a child? I'm happy to compare my answer to Rauser's. 

Setting aside the egregious ethical nature of the doctor’s conduct, the biggest problem with Hays’ response is that the doctor (who obviously parallels God) distinguishes between two groups: the innocent Cambodians who are worthy of being saved (i.e. the “elect”) and the wicked Khmer Rouge who deserve to die (i.e. the “reprobate”). However, if the analogy is to be relevant then it follows that God distinguishes between the elect and reprobate based on the worthiness of the elect (relatively innocent citizens) and the unworthiness of the reprobate (genocidaires!).

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what Pelagian Calvinism looks like.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what a progressive demagogue looks like. Here is Rauser's original example:

Imagine a doctor who has enough antidote for an entire population inflicted with a fatal disease. The doctor's choice to provide the antidote only to a subset of those inflicted would invite the reasonable question: why only some? Why not all?

And replying "He didn't need to save anyone" is not a response to the question "Why didn't he save everyone?"

https://randalrauser.com/2019/03/does-calvinism-entail-that-i-might-love-my-child-more-than-god-does/#comment-4366664262

i) Like so many freewill theists, Rauser uses an example which depicts the condition of the lost as a case of misfortune rather than just desert. But that's a loaded question. 

ii) I'm simply responding to Rauser on his own terms. I gave a counterexample in which it wouldn't be arbitrary for the physician to treat a subset of the sick. It's not like flipping a coin.  

iii) Rauser then commits a level-confusion. My response operates within the framework of his illustration. Even if my response is an inexact match for election and reprobation, that's because Rauser used a poor analogy, and my counterexample is pegged to the nature of his faulty illustration. The defect lies not in my counterexample, but in his example–which my counterexample parallels. 

iv) There is, however, an asymmetry between election and reprobation. Unlike election, which is unconditional, demerit is a necessary, albeit insufficient condition in reprobation. God doesn't damn the innocent. So Rauser's Pelagian accusation is theologically maladroit.