Ethics Case Study

The case study I chose to make a moral decision on was case number 2. The case study studied the ethical process in which doctors kept anencephalic (brain absent) infants alive using life support to harvest their organs to give to children who need new organs to survive. There are about 2,000- 3,000 infants who are born anencephalic each year but on the other hand there about 500-1,000 children that would die before the age of two if they were not given a new donated major organ. The question then arises, “Is it ethical to directly harvest organs from brain absent babies?” I used a decision making system to help me determine the moral decision.

The decision making system I used was the Strict Consequentialism option. I chose this one from

The good produced in the first alternative was valued as one positive and one negative because the anencephalic children can pass peacefully but the children who need an organ no longer have a donor. The good produced in the second alternative was valued as double positive. The positive is that the children are kept alive on life support about a day or two which is around the same amount of time they would live without life support in which keeps organs in top functioning order and also once a donor is not found the infants are able to rest on peacefully with prolonging the vegetative state. Once I determined the consequences I then had to select an alternative that produces the greatest good which in my opinion is alternative number two.

During my decision making process I utilized the teleological ethics. Teleological ethics are acts that are based on the outcome or consequence of the act. I used this type of ethics because I felt like harvesting organs from a terminal child to give a non terminal child a chance to have a better and healthier life has a greater number of advantages or disadvantages. More importantly I feel like that would generate the most good for the greatest number of