This background metaphor affects the way medicine is understood and practiced. If death is the ultimate enemy, we can understand overtreatment of the terminally ill and opposition to withdrawing treatment even at the end of life. The war metaphor explains the priority of tertiary over primary or secondary care, of critical care over chronic care, of intensive care over hospice care. The point of all this is that the war metaphor has no place for equality. Consequently, equity has to struggle to find a place or a justification in modern practice.