Volume VIII Issue i
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Contents
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Letter from the Editor Andrew Jakubowski
- Bioethics in Brief
Articles
- Medical Experimentation: Chimpanzee versus Infant by Daphne Rein-Weston Read Abstract
This work provides an answer to a question regard¬ing the morality of medical experimentation on animals. Forming the basis of my argument is the following sce¬nario: suppose you can perform medical experiments for promising, lifesaving new drugs on either a chimpanzee or on a disabled infant that has been abandoned by its parents and has cognitive abilities are on par with the chimpan¬zee’s. Are there any cogent reasons to prefer performing the experiments on the chimpanzee? There are no reasons to prefer performing medical experiments on a chimpanzee over an orphaned, disabled infant of comparable cognitive abilities because the chimpanzee and the described infant have no difference in their abilities to suffer and because the two agents are equal in their inabilities to consent to the experiments. While I consider the example of a chim¬panzee, these conclusions can be applied to all animals. I argue that suffering an enduring, unhappy experience felt by sentient beings is the main point upon which to evalu¬ate the ethical grounds of experimentation. Suffering is the condition that implies moral significance. There is no moral distinction between the chimpanzee and the infant, and to argue the contrary would be a form of “speciesism,” as defined by Peter Singer. As a work of Jeremy Bentham’s clarifies, “The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?” (Singer 50). Proponents of animal research must be prepared to support experimenta¬tion on the orphaned, disabled infant who, like the chimpanzee, cannot consent.
- Protecting the Rights of the Intersex Newborn by Alissa Aboff Read Abstract
When a newborn’s genitals are neither fully male nor fully female, parents have the option to authorize genital-normalizing surgery on their intersex child. The surgery removes and rearranges genital tissue in order to construct genitalia that better match the child’s assigned gender. Advocates of the traditional protocol for the treatment of intersex children hold that the surgery will ensure normal psychosexual development. However, in the last decade, intersex advocates have begun to question the legality of genital-normalizing surgery in infancy, suggesting that surgery interferes with the child’s right to autonomy. Because genital-normalizing surgery may affect fertility and the capacity for sexual sensation, ethicists hold that there should be a moratorium on such surgery. I will demonstrate that parents do not have a legal right to authorize surgery on their intersex child, and that a moratorium would best protect the intersex child’s best interests.
- Presumed Consent: A Solution to the Organ Shortage by Raquel MacGregor Read Abstract
One of the most imperative problems that the medical community faces is scarcity of resources. This includes doctors, vaccines, CAT scan machines, etc. Particularly, the dearth of viable transplantable organs has caused countless deaths nationwide. As of October 8, 2010 there were 117,925 people on the wait-list registry for organs in the United States (Caplan, 2010). Many of them will not survive long enough to receive an organ. The current system of opt-in consent, in which one designates oneself as an organ donor, has numerous barriers that intrinsically prevent citizens from registering. There have been multiple proposed methods of combating the problem, from incentives for donation, to paired organ exchanges, to changing the system the presumed consent. Particularly, the strategy of presumed consent has been employed with much success in a number of countries. As the federal government has an obligation to protect life, it should therefore make it a priority to lessen the disparity between supply and demand of organs. In response to the increasing organ shortage, switching to a system of presumed consent would be the most logical and ethical method to increase the availability of organs while maintaining the public’s ideal of altruism.