Posted: July 30th, 2015

Board Decision

 
For this Assignment, imagine you are the head of research at a large urban hospital associated with a major university.

The hospital has the chance to hire a doctor who is doing ground-breaking but controversial research on the cloning of humans. Specifically, he is known for creating “spare parts” children. Here is how it works:

In a few cases where parents have had one child with a serious disease, they have used in vitro fertilization to create embryos so that they can have a second child that can act as a future, tailor-made blood or bone marrow donor.

When the “spare parts” child is born, he or she will be healthy and can help his or her older brother or sister stay well on an “as-needed” basis by donating the needed blood or marrow. The potential exists to use the child to donate other organs that require a genetic match, such as kidneys.

The hospital’s Board of Trustees, comprised of doctors, lawyers, academics, and clergy is divided on whether the hospital should hire the doctor.

Assignment:

Write a 3–4 page position paper in which you argue whether or not to hire the doctor.

As you formulate you position, you should:

•Review the “Three Farewells: Medicine & the End of Life” video located at http://www.learner.org/resources/series207.html.

•Write your position paper as though you were making the presentation to the panel of doctors, lawyers, academics, and clergy in the video, which has the ultimate authority to accept or reject the course of action you recommend. The question is whether or not the doctor should be hired to serve on the hospital staff full-time to provide the service of creating “spare parts” children in the future as needed.
•Support your opinion with the ethical and moral principles you have studied.

This is the reading assignment for the class.

Bioethics and Critical Thinking
In bioethics, as much as or maybe more than any other issue-area, the choices one makes are belief-system driven. Religion plays an enormous role in what people find ethical concerning suicide, abortion, and the like.

For this unit, aspire to employ a high level of critical thinking: Do not discard your own feelings (even if that were possible), but rather put your belief-system to one side temporarily, and try to see all sides of an issue.

What is Critical Thinking

Revisit your own feelings and ask yourself where they came from. Are they from your parents or religious training? Then ask yourself whether the results driven by some other belief system or value choice are as good as – or maybe even better than – what your “gut” tells you is the right choice.

Our Focus This Week

The main issue-areas you will examine include:

Abortion: When does life begin? Is it when the sperm fertilizes the egg, or later? What implications does the answer to that question have on a woman’s control over her body? If abortion is allowed, should the father be allowed to prohibit it? After all, it is his child too, is not it?

Eugenics: Should we exercise our rapidly-advancing ability to alter offspring? If we can create a designer baby, should we? It is an expensive process – should there be financial aid to poorer parents, or should it be a privilege of the rich? Is “assisted conception” (implanting eggs and sperm of husband, wife, and donors) ethical?

Euthanasia: Is it ethical to assist someone to commit suicide, and if so, when? Is it legal anywhere in America? Is it ethical to put someone out of their misery with a “mercy-killing,” and if so, when?

Understanding Bioethics and Its Complexities

Using your favorite search engine, research the definition of bioethics.

Review the information provided at these websites. Perform additional web research on the subject matter as well.

Save these links/web resources to a folder on your computer. They will be your resources on this topic, and they will provide the topics for your Discussion topic, Seminar, and Case Study Assignment.

In reviewing the websites and the information provided, ask yourself a) what ethical principles supported the results reached, and b) whether you would have chosen differently or come to a different conclusion. Then examine what you have learned in the context of the following bioethics issues.
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