Paper

Part A.

1. Answer these questions regarding Research Ethics:

1. What groups or people are deemed “vulnerable populations”? What measures can be put in place to protect these groups?
2. What is the Belmont Report? It provides a framework with three ideas in mind. What are they? Why was the IRB created?

2. Morally evaluate the fact that involuntary sterilization is permitted in some states in the USA. Make sure to use moral theories or principles in your answer.

Part B

1. A patient presents at the hospital with signs and symptoms of pancreatic cancer. The prognosis is not good and radiation and chemotherapy treatment would cause additional discomfort and nausea to the patient. The patient elects to return home with only pain medication, forgoing any treatment. The patient is married and has young children.

1. When is it justifiable to force treatment on a patient who refuses?
2. Does this physician respect the autonomy of this patient?

2. The following clip was taken from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0AkJXI2Yxk (Henrietta Lacks Galerie Myrtis CBS Sunday Morning)

Henrietta Lack’s cells have been used for research for decades, though she did not provide consent for their use.  Please apply the principles of a) autonomy, b) beneficence, and c) utility to this scenario and describe if the researchers’ actions were ethical overall.

Part C

1.     Evaluate the following case a) using the moral principle of autonomy and b) critique the principle of autonomy (you can use an ethics of care perspective (p. 61-64); or shared decision making perspectives; or informed consent (chpt5); or the principle of beneficence; or paternalism). Then, c) provide an overall recommendation.

[DO NOT answer the ways you did in Exam 1. I want you to dig deeper.]

 “Harold Smith is a 27-year-old man who used to live a dangerous lifestyle. He liked nothing more than an extreme thrill, such as diving off a cliff into swirling water. He lived alone and had few friends. He worked as a guard for an armored vehicle company, a job he tolerated. He is close to his parents and would visit them frequently. They continually tried to get him to live a more standard, less dangerous lifestyle. He seemed to enjoy their prodding but simply smiled in response. He recently broke his neck in a diving accident. He was quickly brought to an emergency room and intubated because he could not breathe on his own. Within a few days, it became clear that he was permanently paralyzed from the neck down. Without a ventilator he would quickly die.

 Harold began to insist that his ventilator be removed, saying that he would rather be dead than live in a paralyzed state. His parents, however, instructed the health care team to not remove the ventilator. The attending physician understands Harold’s objections but believes there is a small but significant chance that Harold will soon become independent of the ventilator and that he will adjust to his situation and find a way to make a meaningful life for himself, as so many others have done before him. In short, his physicians think it best not to remove the ventilator until Harold has psychologically adjusted to his new condition. After three weeks, Harold continues to demand that his ventilator be removed” (Jones & Demarco, 2016).

2. Describe how two moral perspectives would decide whether physician-assisted suicide should be legal. In your answer, be sure to be explicit about how these two perspectives make their arguments. That is to say, what assumptions are they making, what moral theories or principles are they using, what evidence are they using in support of their positions?