Running head: LEGAL AND ETHICAL ISSUES IN MY SISTER’S KEEPER
Legal and Ethical Issues in My Sister’s Keeper
Detra Smith
Med 149: Medical Ethics
Abstract
In this paper I am going to identify some the legal and ethical issues in My Sister’s Keeper. Some of those issues include emancipation of a minor, genetic engineering, and limited termination of parental rights. I will be giving my opinion on these matters also.
My Sister’s Keeper is about a family who conceives a child strictly for the use as bone marrow donor for her gravely ill older sister. Kate is diagnosed with Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia at the age of two. As their doctor tells them of their options, he asks Sara and Brian, the parents, have they thought about
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She left her morals at home on the kitchen table that day and kept leaving them behind. In this movie, it seemed that the mother is putting one child’s quality of life over the other children. Jesse is being neglected because he has a selfish mother. He is just a shadow that sulks and creeps throughout the house and the city. As parents how they can they do that. I know that when you are dealing with a seriously ill family member, some things do get neglected or put on the back burner. But that thing should not be your child. Sara and Brian did not even realize that Jesse was suffering with dyslexia. Anna and Kate have came up with a bunch of reasons as to why Anna wants to be emancipated. At the age of eleven, Anna and her older brother, Jesse, go hire a lawyer to sue their parents for the rights to Anna’s body. The lawyer takes the case because he knows what it is like to live a life where you have no control of your body. The lawyer suffers from epilepsy. Anna wants to become a medically emancipated minor. The courts had never heard of such a case and there is no such term as medically emancipated, legally defined. With Anna becoming medically emancipated, it means that Sara and Brian’s parental rights have been terminated within limits. They still had to provide shelter, food, clothing, and other basics, but they could not tell her what to do medically. In my opinion, an eleven year old is not responsible
The problem solving methods that might be helpful to assist Jerry in making an ethical decision would be to establish trust with the patient and become aware of the problem. Then analyze the problems and decide on a plan with the patient. He will then want to make sure he reinforces the commitment to the patient and activate the plan. Last, he will follow through with the task and monitor everything until the situation is taken care of.
1) Since the injured plaintiff was not wearing a seatbelt, why is Ford being sued for failing to test the seatbelt sleeve?
1. The Mayor of a large city was given a free membership in an exclusive golf club by people who have received several city contracts. He also accepted gifts from organizations that have not done business with the City but might in the future. The gifts ranged from $200 tickets to professional sports events to designer watches and jewelry.
This Rights model, more specifically Ashley’s human rights is very present in the article. It could be argued that she doesn’t need or require the treatment to medically improve her life. The Equal and Human Rights Commission (2008) suggest that human rights are the freedoms that we are all entitled to as a result of our shared humanity. I understand that she is unable to speak and is unlikely to have the mental capacity to make that decision but does that automatically transfer that decision to her parents? The United Nations Convention on the Rights for a Child (1989) plays an important part of the Rights model for this text as I feel it both supports and opposes the parent’s actions. Article 23 concentrates on children’s disability by stating that ‘Children who have any kind of disability have the right to special care and support, as well as all the rights in the Convention, so that they can live full and independent lives.’ This could support Ashley’s parent’s’ motives. However, Article 3 states ‘The best interests of children must be the primary concern in making decisions that may affect them. All adults should do what is best for children. When adults make decisions, they should think about how their decisions will affect children.’ In this case are the parents doing what’s best for Ashley or themselves? This is a good example where the Rights model can get itself in a twist!
Nurses are faced with ethical issues and dilemmas on a regular basis. Nurses must understand his or her values and morals to be able to deal adequately with the ethical issues he or she is faced with. Some ethical issues nurses are exposed to may be more difficult than others and the ethical decision making process is learned over time.
She assumed that parents allowed the baby and the medical team to go through the dilemma of treating baby Charlotte because they were too young, and too hopeful. However, I personally believe that race, age, cultural background or anything else are not factors on the innate desire that parents have for hoping against all hopes that their children get every bit of medical attention if only to get them to live a bit longer. I further argue that there was no mention of consultation with other medical facilities for alternative treatments like stem cells or other newly emerging treatments that could have swayed this article towards the other side. And above all, we can’t discredit the fact that sometimes people survive the worse conditions despite doctors’ worse prognosis.
For the couples who cannot afford the use of IVF-treatments, problems with sick and disabled children could be a reality. If a child was born with a severe heart defect or in some, other way had to live with an illness, which could lower their life quality. Some parents have been known to force another baby into the world, primarily as a ‘savior sibling’, a child from where the sick sister or brother would be able to receive matching genes to either cure or treat the illness in question. This was seen in the movie ‘My sister’s keeper’ where a family with this exact problem is shown, and the dilemmas they have to
Kate is ill and Sara wants to keep her daughter alive. Sara does everything in her power to keep her daughter alive. When it turned out that no one in the family matched to donate bone marrow to Kate. Sara and Brian decide to create a baby that would be a match. While Sara doesn’t hesitate, Brian does. He isn’t sure if this is the right thing to do. The baby they created is named Anna. At a certain moment Anna decides that she wants to have the
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My Sister’s Keeper is the story of the Fitzgerald family. When doctors diagnose their two year old daughter Kate with a rare form of leukemia it forever alters their lives. Without a donor, Kate would die, but no one in the family was a genetic match. A controversial procedure in which they could conceive a genetic match soon became the only viable option, which is why they conceived their daughter Anna. Kate’s battle with cancer was no easy feat, as she was in and out of remission for thirteen years undergoing countless
Morals, values and ethics define who we are and what we believe. Culture, religion, and many other things affect our beliefs. One uses various types off ethics when surrounded by different groups. Knowing between right and wrong is a good foundation to practicing good ethics and morals. These things make morals, ethics, and values important in society.
| In this option Michelle’s parents take the approach that one healthy child is a better option than one very sick child and another that could potentially be injured trying to save the sick child’s life. The parents are basically going to be left with one healthy child and the grief involved with the impending death of Michelle.
Today’s business world presents numerous ethical issues. In today’s world above board/moral ethics in organizations do not often materialize intuitively. Organization must strive to provide employees with a clear understanding of the overall company vision. This will aid employees in practicing the code of ethics, policies and procedures in the workplace. Companies must be unwavering in continuously delivering the uppermost ethics of provision in which customers, applicants and employees are entitled to under fair business practices. One major core value is to uphold responsible and fair business practices.
When it comes to large sums of money, it is not uncommon for the spender to feel they have been ripped off or become over protected. The practice of law is no exception to this phenomenon, and crocked lawyers and paralegals have negatively contributed to the notion. On several occasions law professionals have taken client money for personal use, acting against the law and rules of professional conduct. Although lawyers and paralegals have their own individual rules and guidelines to abide by, they follow the same professional structure of proper conduct. The rules of conduct for paralegals is governed by the Law Society of Upper Canada and is the governing body responsible for reports of misconduct. Further investigations will lay out the proper procedures and tasks that must be completed when a paralegal encounters an accusations of misconduct, specifically when a client accuses a paralegal of misappropriating money from the clients trust fund. When it comes to possible options it is important to remember that by proactively sending a report of the circumstance to the Law Society of Upper Canada with a detailed list of events, bookkeeping and accounts billed to the client will help your case prior to the client reporting you to the Law Society. Should a paralegal choose to ignore the threat of the client, in hopes that the client will not follow through with higher involvement, the paralegal will then face an audit by the Law Society. If the Law Society is apprised that the
The word “ethics” comes from Greek ethikas meaning character. Today, we use ethics to describe the normative standard of behavior. The history of philosophical ethics has been broken up into five rational methods: Virtue, Traditional, Modern, and Post-Modern Ethics. Within these periods, the philosophy of ethics changed along with the changes being made within society.