PHIL 515 Healthcare EthicsLaura HowardSemester Paper InstructionsYou should do this assignment only if it was specifically assigned to you, by name. A list of names and assignments appears in the content module “Paper Instructions.”For this assignment, you will give an argument to answer a specific moral question that appears at the end of the story. You will also give a dissenting view. Specific instructions follow the question prompt.
Your paper will be posted for all of your classmates to read. Healthcare case #3: Research on PrisonersThe StoryForty-eight-year-old Harry Henning was in the fifth year of a twenty-year sentence in the state prison for a third offense of possession of heroin and attempting to sell.
He had been convicted within a few years of completing college. Since entering the prison he had been drug free, but often recalled the ‘rush’ of his drug of choice. The state prison was notoriously overcrowded, with three prisoners per cell and limited time for exercise or recreation.Marc Turner, MD, was a research pharmacologist who had devoted his career to problems of addiction.
For the past five years he had been doing research on a new agent that was a specific heroin receptor cell blocker.The drug, which could be administered by an implant, was designed to provide long-term blocking of the effects of heroin. It had been tested in mice and in three other species of animals and was now ready tor initial trials in humans.Dr. Turner turned to the state prison to find research subjects for a phase-one trial of his new compound.
On the basis of animal studies, he had good reason to believe it would be safe in humans and effective in blocking the addiction response by interfering with the site at which heroin binds in the brain. He proposed to recruit former heroin addicts, administer the implant, and then administer heroin to study the response.
State regulations permitted the use of certain prisoners for research but prohibited payment of undue compensation, defined as any amount significantly different from what prisoners could earn in other prison employment.
Dr. Turner realized that if his study went as planned, the subjects would experience none of the traditional pleasure s of heron. Nevertheless, in case the drug did not work as hoped, he wanted to make the initial trial of the drug on persons whose environment would be tightly controlled for several years. Furthermore, he needed to control the environment of the subjects during the research period.
In order to provide this control, he proposed to do the research on prisoners with long enough sentences that they would have time to recover should something go wrong with the experiment. To provide adequate control of the environment during the research, he proposed to move the prisoner subjects to the hospital ward of the prison where the prisoner would be placed in a private room with bath.
Each prison hospital room had a TV and easy chair as well as a hospital bed.When Harry Henning saw the notice recruiting subjects, he figured he was an ideal candidate. He had had his life destroyed by his uncontrollable addition and would like to make a contribution to society to prevent similar problems with others in the future.
The private room was also appealing. The specific moral judgment you must make:Should the institutional review board responsible for approving research in the prison permit prisoners such as Mr. Henning to volunteer for this research? If so, can a prisoner in this environment give an adequately free and informed consent?Before you write:
Nota Bene: I recommend that you review the document “How to Write a Short Moral Argument,” and my video lecture on the “Ten Biggest Argument Mistakes.”Nota Bene: You should assume that your reader knows the details of the story; do not give a summary of the story.
Paper length should be in the range of 1250-1750 words (about 5-7 pages).Please use Chicago style for citations. (Just ‘insert’ footnotes or endnotes.) I’m not picky about exact syntactical formatting. As long as I can find the source, that will be sufficient.Your paper will be posted for all of your classmates to read.
Name your paper as follows:Last Name_Healthcare case 3Your paper needs to be submitted in two places by the deadline: Submit your paper to theDropbox folder named “Paper” and to the Discussion board topic named “Papers to Choose From for Final Exam.” Thank you!Structure of paper:
1. Begin with a brief summary that explains laws or regulations pertaining to this case, if there are any. (Hint: do your research with an eye toward ‘protection of vulnerable populations’ laws and regulations.
If you can’t find anything, just say that, and give your speculation as to why this might be so.)2. Give your specific moral judgment in answer to the prompt, using general moral principles and/or theories to defend your position. Remember that you are to give a moral argument, not a legal argument.
Nor should you do a financial analysis. This is an ethical question, no matter what the law currently says. Things to ponder as you formulate your argument:a. Given the external constraints of life in a prison, can prisoners ever make substantially autonomous decisions? [Important Note: Mr. Henning did not lack any cognitive capacities for rationality; he is not mentally ill, physically ill, he is of normal intelligence, he thinks clearly.)b.
What guidelines shouldbe in place to protect prisoners who may want to volunteer for research studies?c. What makes the offer seem irresistibly attractive? Is there any worry of this being an exploitative offer, one in which someone is being taken advantage of because of his dire need?d.
What is inherently wrong, if anything, with making attractive offers?e. Compare this case to one in which a dying cancer patient is told the only chance of a cure is to agree to an extremely nauseating and unpleasant chemotherapy agent. This would be irresistibly attractive to a dying person. Yet, we would presumably not argue that the cancer patient shouldn’t be allowed to accept the offer.
What’s the difference between this and Henning’s case?f. Would it be more ethical to conduct the research if the living conditions were made much worse, say, as bad as those in which he would otherwise be living?g. Would the principle of beneficence override the principle of respect for autonomy in this case, resulting in a paternalistic decision to prohibit Mr. Henning from participating in the research?3.
After presenting your argument, then give the best counter-argument against the moral judgment you defended. There are several ways to do this:a. You might give a separate, stand-alone argument, which comes to a different conclusion.b. You might challenge a premise of your original argument by giving dissenting views about the claim.c.
You might offer addition evidence or a counter-example that weakens the argument.d. You might put forth a different general moral principle that was not considered in the original argument and which leads to a different line of reasoning.4. Conclude with a brief response to the counter-argument in an attempt to strengthen your
