Assignment: Organ Conscription
Assignment: Organ Conscription
Write a 2-3 page paper that examines the moral and ethical considerations of organ conscription policies and theories.
Scarcity of Medical Resources
For this assessment, you will continue your survey of ethical principles in health care. Especially in our contemporary world, where needs for health care outstrip available resources, we regularly face decisions about who should get which resources.
There is a serious shortage of donor organs. Need vastly outstrips supply, due not only to medical advances related to organ transplantation, but also because not enough people consent to be cadaveric donors (an organ donor who has already died). Munson (2014) points out that in the United States, approximately 10,000 patients die each year because an organ donor was not available, which is three times the number of people killed in the terrorist attacks on 9/11.
Assignment: Organ Conscription
But what is an efficient and morally sound solution to this problem? The policy of presumed consent, where enacted, has scarcely increased supply, and other alternatives, such as allowing donors to sell their organs, raise strong moral objections. In light of this, some have advocated for a policy of conscription of cadaveric organs (Spital & Erin, 2002). This involves removing organs from the recently deceased without first obtaining consent of the donor or his or her family. Proponents of this policy argue that conscription would not only vastly increase the number of available organs, and hence save many lives, but that it is also more efficient and less costly than policies requiring prior consent. Finally, because with a conscription policy all people would share the burden of providing organs after death and all would stand to benefit should the need arise, the policy is fair and just.
Demonstration of Proficiency
By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and scoring guide criteria:
Competency 1: Articulate ethical issues in health care.
Articulate the moral concerns surrounding a policy of organ conscription.
Articulate questions about the fairness and justness of organ conscription policy.
Explain the relevance and significance of the concept of consent as it pertains to organ donation.
Evaluate alternative policies for increasing available donor organs.
Competency 5: Communicate in a manner that is scholarly, professional, and respectful of the diversity, dignity, and integrity of others and is consistent with health care professionals.
Exhibit proficiency in clear and effective academic writing skills.
References
Munson, R. (2014). Intervention and reflection: Basic issues in bioethics (concise ed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth.
Spital, A., & Erin, C. (2002). Conscription of cadaveric organs for transplantation: Let’s at least talk about it. American Journal of Kidney Disease, 39(3), 611–615.
Instructions
Do you consider the policy of organ conscription to be morally sound?
Write a paper that answers this question, defending that answer with cogent moral reasoning and supporting your view with ethical theories or moral principles you take to be most relevant to the issue. In addition to reviewing the suggested resources, you are encouraged to locate additional resources in the school library, your public library, or authoritative online sites to provide additional support for your viewpoint. Be sure to weave and cite the resources throughout your work.
In your paper, address the following:
On what grounds could one argue that consent is not ethically required for conscription of cadaveric organs? And on what grounds could one argue that consent is required?
Is the policy truly just and fair, as supporters claim? Explain.
Do you consider one of the alternative policies for increasing available donor organs that Munson discusses to be preferable to conscription? Explain why or why not.
Submission Requirements
Written communication: Written communication is free of errors that detract from the overall message.
APA formatting: Resources and citations are formatted according to current APA style and formatting guidelines.
Length: 2–3 typed, double-spaced pages.
Font and font size: Times New Roman, 12 point.
Assignment: Organ Conscription
You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.
Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.
Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.
The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS
Discussion Questions (DQ)
Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.
Weekly Participation
Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.
APA Format and Writing Quality
Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.
Use of Direct Quotes
I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.
LopesWrite Policy
For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy
The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.
Communication
Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.
Robbing the Dead: The Ethical Implications of Organ Donation
One of the primary ideas that guides the work of health-care providers is the goal of extending life as much as feasible. The application of both natural and artificial methods of lifesaving is essential under this paradigm. Some of the proposed approaches, such as organ conscription, are, on the other hand, problematic from an ethical standpoint. Health-care providers are prompted to extract organs from recently deceased patients in order to facilitate transplantation through this technique. Consent would be neither required nor requested unless in the case of minor deviations. Because the organs are sourced from cadavers, there is no way to opt out of the procedure. The procedure is a ground-breaking, revolutionary solution to the problem of organ transplantation. This study investigates the circumstances under which consent would be required or not, the fairness of the policy, and alternative strategies for expanding the number of eligible donor organs.
Consent Requirements and Justifications
Cadaveric organ donation is one of the medical operations that are guided by the idea of autonomous decision making. Before acquiring any organ, it is critical to guarantee that the donor has given some indication of consent; but, when a person is already deceased, this concern lacks solid foundation. According to Segal and Truog (2017), the primary concern with organ conscription is posthumous wishes and the dignity provided to life, whether it is living or dead. In general, while considering extending transplantation possibilities, it is critical to recognize that people have made a voluntary decision about what they want to do with their bodies even after they have died.
Concerning the problem of permission, it would be superfluous to consent to the conscription of cadaveric organs if a person’s relatives could not be identified or located. People have died strangely in the past, to the point where no afterlife rituals have been done and their bodies have been buried in the form of waste disposals. In such circumstances, it can be assumed that such organizations do not have ethical backgrounds that would preclude them from being conscripted. The other situation is when it is possible to determine the religious background of the cadaver. According to Shaw et al. (2018), religious concerns constitute the basis for the majority of conceivable exceptions regarded to be barriers to conscription. If a person’s background can be traced, such as in the case of atheists, removing their organs for conscription would be ethically permissible.
Conscription, on the other hand, would require the assent of the individual in question. One of these situations is when there is a legal obligation to respect a person’s wishes. In practice, health-care practitioners must adhere to the non-interference principle in order to deliver effective care. This concept is applied in most cases, and it is the state that determines the extent to which people’s wishes are interfered with after they die. Assuming that the available information is compelling that they were constrained by religious beliefs at some point in their lives or that they had stated an imprecise intention regarding the use of their bodies after death, agreement from proxies should be sought. In order to prevent ethical concerns or violations of donor registration guidelines, the primary reason is to avoid donor registration.
Fairness in the Conscription Process
Despite the opposing viewpoints, conscription of cadaveric organs is strongly advocated in order to increase the number of organ transplants. The procedure is typically supported by the fundamental concept of utilitarian theory, which holds that activities are right as long as they result in pleasure and happiness for the individual (Munson, 2014). From a utilitarian standpoint, organ conscription is a fair practice because it improves joy and satisfaction while causing no harm to the lives of those who have passed away.
People with end-stage organ disease (ESOD) and those who have just died are bound together, which is another example of the fairness of organ conscription in practice. It has been suggested by Loughery et al. (2018) that these people are inescapably linked together by the fact that one side comprises people whose lives can be saved or prolonged while the other side contains people who have priceless resources that are not beneficial to them. In this context, conscription is just a means of accessing a resource that should be available to society at no cost, without compromising the principles of self-determination and dignity. The difficulty can be simply grasped without adding to the complexity of the matter by bringing in religious, cultural, and emotional attachments into the mix. A large number of people die while waiting for an organ transplant, while a smaller number of people die with viable, functional organs that can be retrieved for transplantation. Overall, conscription is fair and just, but it is not fair and just from a medical standpoint.
Increasing the number of available organ donors
It is critical to assist life-changing procedures, such as increasing the availability of donor organs, in order to save lives. When it comes to organ donation, Munson (2014) takes a utilitarian approach to the process. As long as the procedure is carried out for the benefit of the broader public, it is rational. One of the possible approaches that Munson explores for expanding the number of eligible donor organs is the payment of living donors. When it comes to organ sales, the world should not restrict them on the grounds that compensated donation decreases altruism in society and may limit the number of organ donations made by deceased donors. This approach should be supported since the ultimate goal should be to save and prolong lives to the greatest extent possible, provided that there is consent or supposed consent to the procedure.
Last but not least, developing a universally agreed-upon opinion on the conscription of cadaveric organs is a difficult undertaking. The issue of consent appears to be at the heart of the debate around it, as it is critical to respect the decisions made by cadavers about what to do with their organs after they have died. Although informed consent is essential, it is also important to consider the matter from a medical standpoint. As a first step toward a more supportive environment for life, the world must shift away from its current religious and cultural viewpoints on the deceased and instead be directed by the view of body parts as valuable resources.
