This I believe . . . At the end of the semester
1. Patient autonomy should stop when . . .they are going to cause harm to themselves or to someone else. I think that patient autonomy should be highly respected and not jeopardized. I think it is easy for us to want to take it away, especially when we think someone is being “unreasonable” until it is us that is having our autonomy taken away from us. This is a good time to reflect if our opinions or suggestions are not being taken, why that might be. It would also be a good opportunity not to be offended if someone chooses to not use their autonomy in line with what we have said. I think overall, this is the same as the beginning of the semester.
2. Medical research should . . .my top priority is always going to be safety. You need to have regulations and patient consent. I think the patient consent is something I have appreciated a lot more because of this course. It really drove home how important it is and how it prevents organizations or the government (even when they are acting in “the best interest”) from practicing unethical research without patients consenting to participate. Medical research is still tough for me to completely justify in some ways, because there are moments I find myself thinking that research has the possibility to benefit millions and billions of people but there are always a few that have to sacrifice in order to obtain that information. Finding those individuals to volunteer will always be tough.
3. Genetic testing for the future should . . .not jeopardize the health or safety of people today. I do think it is difficult to do testing only using computer models and other indirect measurements. There is a human component that is needed in these tests. With that said, I think this can be done without making someone suffer unnecessarily for the benefit of everyone else. I think this has a lot of potential to help curb suffering later on but it needs to know what its limits are. It can’t go too far otherwise I think our society will be in a tricky position, knowing what is alright to mess with and when we are trying to control too much.
4. Egg and sperm donation should be . . .done much differently than it is today. I remember this section in the semester and I was less impressed when I heard more about it. I think participants are being paid way too much money for this and I think that there are a lot of risks that the donor does not fully appreciate. It sounded like they accept a lot of unknowns and most of all, I don’t know that this is something people should be making a profit on. I think this opens the door to classify people as, worthy or unworthy in terms of who is or isn’t able to donate their eggs too. I think if a family is unable to have a child, then sure, allow this to happen because someone is fortunate enough to donate. But only allow them to do it once or twice, I just don’t like the idea this could be a profession.
5. Abortion should/should not be . . .it should be legal. I don’t know that I am in favor of absolutes. Saying that, “no one can get an abortion, ever” is a little too far from me. If a teenage girl is raped, why does she have to go to full term with that baby? I don’t know that I would wish that upon my daughter or a friends daughter, especially if it was not wanted. This could bring about unwanted pain and heartache that could be avoided with an abortion. I think we need to make sure we aren’t offering this as a curb side service either. We need to show, through example, that human life is precious. Also that we need to exercise some responsibility with our actions. We also need to set some points at which it is ok and at what point it becomes not ok. At what point does the fetus become protected? I know this is a rhetorical question but we need to have an idea of where this might be so people are not harming innocent children.
6. Treating or terminating impaired infants should be decided by . . .the parents. I think the parents should have the ability to make this decision, as long as it is informed by their medical provider. I think a lot of this has to do with the parents ability to take care of the child after it is born. If they will be unable to emotionally or financially invest in the child then they would be doing themselves and the child a big favor. We cannot deny the parents that want their children, no matter how high functioning, the ability to raise the child they have created.
7. Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide should be . . .allowed. I think this is one of the areas that I probably became a lot more loose on through the semester. I see and hear so many elderly people say that they are ready to go and why stop them from doing that if they are in a lot of pain and feel like they have accomplished everything they wanted to? Obviously I am in favor of this when it comes to the elderly. I think I am also more compassionate to terminal patients. I am not that compassionate to people who are young or have emotionally challenges because I think they can be worked out. Also they might be making an emotional decision instead of a rational one. There are lots of resources for help.
8. Payment to organ donors or their families should be . . .highly considered. In a perfect world, I think the families would not get paid and would give their loved ones organs free of charge to someone who is in desperate need. I can also see how a widowed husband or wife who could be struggling financially could really benefit from getting the money. I guess as long as the hospital who is taking the organs is not making money, or charging money for use of the organs, then I don’t have a problem not paying the families. You also need to be careful for people who are socioeconomically disadvantaged from selling their organs to agencies who rip them off for donating organs for quick cash.
9. Allocation of health care should/should not be considered based on a person's age/quality of life/ability to pay . . .I think the ability to pay is something that, we as a society, can help people out with. As long as they are not abusing the system. I think that the person’s age and quality of life can be considered between a healthy young 20 something year old and an 80 demented patient for example, if they were being considered for an organ transplant. What we need to be careful of is not discriminating against people whose lifestyles we do not agree with. While some lifestyles are risky, we need to keep an open mind and furthermore give people treatment whenever is possible.
10. Medical research for women should . . .not be done on pregnant women. That is one of my only conditions, other than the obvious safety and willingness aspects. I don’t think I have a lot of other criteria when it comes to this. it should also include women in the planning and implementation parts of this research because women will have the best understanding of how to move forward with research and will provide some compassion and insights that men will overlook or not fully appreciate.
11. Health care for minorities should be . . .organized. It is a mess, a complete mess that costs billions of dollars per year (for illegal’s). We saw this in the articles that we read during the semester and how this is unsustainable in the long term. We cannot blame these people for wanting access to quality healthcare we need to find a way that our minority groups have the opportunity to access citizenship and then be able to afford their health care. I think we need to make sure that we are training providers that are able to offer cultural and language services so the message is not lost in translation and so patients feel represented/listened to. We should also find ways to increase access to health care in low income/rural communities that do not have the amount of health care providers they need.
12. Those with AIDS/HIV should . . .take on a greater responsibility with their disease. Yes, I think the rest of us be educated and exercise good health practices as to not become infected or be naïve that it exists. But I think the people who are infected have the duty to tell the people around them, especially their health care providers so that they can be given and pointed in the right direction to get the resources they need. They should not be discriminated against. We don’t always get to know the full story. Even if the person contracted this because of behavior we do not agree with, it is not enough to judge them or view them as less-than because this is such a life changing condition.
13. My opinion has changed on . . . because . . . OR My opinion has not changed on any of these issues because . . . overall, I feel like my opinion has not changed on a lot of these topics. I consider myself a very moderate individual and think that I became more liberal in some areas, while I was drawn to be more conservative in others. For example, discussing the idea of terminating a baby who may be genetic defects was a really difficult issue that gave me a lot to consider. I realized how excluding or decreasing the number of one sort of people would not improve the world we live in, if anything, it would make it worse and only create some other problem down the road. HIV/AIDS, healthcare for minorities, and abortion all stayed about the same. These are areas that I feel strongly about and I was able to consider the other side several times, which helped me begin to see why some people become to passionate about these subjects on the flip side. Patient autonomy and euthanasia are two areas that need to have special eyes put on it so that our ethical/moral selves do not see it fade away. Just because we invent and implement newer and better systems, does not mean that we should begin making decisions for other people. I believe that I see the harm and consequences that can come from these areas if they are tampered with. If anything, I was able to consider both sides of many issues in greater depth.