A significant ethical concern in the context of the proposed legislation is that it prioritises cancer treatment over other drugs, interventions and services. As Senator John Crown indicated, there are other areas of the health service which are of equal importance. The prioritisation of cancer treatment would pose a serious challenge to the fundamental concept of equity in the provision of health care. Requiring a drug to be assessed and a decision made by comparing it with existing services and other potential competing service developments is considered to be a fairer method of allocating resources. Drugs and new technologies will always hold greater appeal than, for example, preventive medicine which may well offer larger population benefits. Allowing special decision-making for cancer treatments is ethically problematic because it would mean the system would make provision for a subset of funding decisions to be taken on a different basis. It is highly unlikely that such an approach would conform to the accountability for reasonableness framework which seeks to ensure fair and legitimate allocation of resources in health care. One would have to be made of stone not to understand that when it is a question of an immediate threat to life, people can very reasonably make an argument in this regard.