Bioethics

Advice and Requirements

• Question topic is clear and succinct. The introduction is well written and outlines students’ arguments. 
• The student identifies the key ethical dilemmas presented by the question. What are the potential paths/responses to the ethical dilemmas? 
• Throughout the paper, relevant ethical principles and concepts are discussed and fully explained. 
• Student provides a thoughtful and comprehensive analysis of alternative arguments and identifies key arguments made in the assigned reading. 
• Student provides a concluding opinion that references relevant literature and includes student’s assessment of the literature. 
• Students makes clear word choices and uses proper grammar. Words are not misspelled.
• Student uses topic sentences and clear and concise language in each paragraph.
• Student provides at least 10 references to peer reviewed literature or law review articles published by law journals.  You may add additional news sources, but only the Atlantic, NY Times, Wall Street Journal, or Washington Post
• All citations are in proper APA format.
• The paper is 7 pages, double-spaced, in 12 point, Arial Font.

For your papers, you should assume the technology is safe. There is no ethical dilemma about safety.  Ethical dilemmas occur when the path forward is unclear. Obviously, the technologies should be safe. My advice if you feel overwhelmed (see my email sent yesterday) is to focus on one or two ethical questions and evaluate the ethical arguments: pros and cons.   Will the world be a better place if we allow designer babies (utilitarianism)? Will parents love their children less if they "design" them but the children fail to meet expectations? Are embryos persons who should not be altered because they are inherently valuable? What arguments were compelling in your textbook?  Here is an OPTIONAL panel discussion I participated in on designer babies and I have added some example arguments below. SLC 

Example arguments

"It is a defect of character to be disposed to love one’s child only if the child turns out a certain way. But a parent who thinks “I will only love my child if she has well above average intelligence” has the same sort of character fault as a parent who thinks “I will only love my child if she has no disabilities or diseases”. The disposition to love conditionally is not the same either as the desire to master nature or the dismissal of the unbidden. Sandel endorses the efforts of parents who devote considerable time, money and emotion to seeking cures for their children’s diseases. He is not particularly concerned that the actions of such parents are likely to render love conditional on a child being healthy. Why does he think that parents who instead devote time, money and emotion to enhancing their children’s abilities beyond the demands of health will undermine the norm of unconditional love? " Summary of Michael Sandel’s argument. 

"A deeper issue, I think, is our lack of imagination as designers. That is, most people’s conception of the varieties of goods is very limited, and if they designed people their improvements would likely conform to limited, predictable types. But we should know that we are constantly surprised at the great range of good traits in people, and even more the incredible range of combinations of traits that turn out to produce “flavors” in people that are, to our surprise, good. For example, could we predict that a very particular degree of irony combined with a certain degree of diffidence would constitute an interesting type of personality?" Kamm, F. M. (2005). Is there a problem with enhancement?. The American Journal of Bioethics, 5(3), 5-14.

Sandel thinks that in seeing life as a gift, we see it as something we ought not alter, even if we can. Why not? If life was literally a gift from God, then one can understand that there might be good reasons for refusing to fiddle with its makeup. It smacks of ungratefulness. – Summary of Michael Sandel’s arguments

Is an embryo a person? Why should it have certain rights or protections? 

Michael Sandel: "To appreciate children as gifts or blessings is not to be passive in the face of an illness or disease. Healing a sick or injured child does not override her natural capacities but permits them to flourish. Although medical treatment intervenes in nature, it does so for the sake of health, and so does not represent a boundless bid for mastery and dominion. Even strenuous attempts to treat or cure disease do not constitute a Promethean assault on the given. The reason is that medicine is governed, or at least guided, by the norm of restoring and preserving the natural human functions that constitute health."

Please include these readings as sources:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1010517

https://www.nature.com/articles/526029a

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/01/science/gene-therapy-muscular-dystrophy.html?_r=0

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1506446

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4778182/