Stem Cell Research and Cloning Essay

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Race and gender issues can influence medical treatment as many researchers have shown. The study by Benjamins and Whitman (2014), for example, showed that ethnic and racial discrimination is found in health care settings and results in health care services being limited to certain groups. The study surveyed 1700 individuals of white, black, Mexican, and Puerto Rican descent and found that 1/4th of respondents stated that they had experienced health care discrimination, and the skew showed that the discrimination was race-related. The types of discrimination cited by the respondents included not receiving the care they required, and not receiving quality of care.

Another study, this one by Grace, Kara, Kennedy and McDonald (2014), found that racial disparities exist in pediatric kidney transplantation. The study took place in New Zealand and focused on what types of patients were most likely to be receive a kidney transplant before others in the same need. The sample consisted of 215 patients undergoing renal replacement therapy and the findings showed that the highest percentage of patients to receive the needed transplant were Asians and Europeans while Pacific and Maori patients were only half as likely as Europeans to receive the same transplant. In other words, there was a clear racial and ethnic bias in terms of which patients were administered to first in this part of the world.

Many other studies exist that have examined the impact of racism and gender discrimination in health care. It is a problem because medical professionals have an obligation to treat people fairly without bias no matter what their race, gender or sexual orientation. This is part of their Hippocratic Oath. Whenever bias plays a role in determining the extent to which health care will be received, it is objectionable. A good example is the Tuskegee Experiments, in which black patients were not treated for syphilis because health researchers wanted to monitor the effect of the disease on the human body over time. This was cruel and unusual and never should have happened.

I also think there is a class bias that can occur as well; indeed, the entire Eugenics Movement got off to a start in the West because of upper class WASPS (white Anglo-Saxon Protestants) wanting to cull the herd and purge society of undesirables, who could not justify their own existence based on what they earned and/or contributed to society (Corbett, 2017). Health care should not be denied anyone based on race, ethnicity, gender or class. It should be provided to one and all by health care professionals who have been trained to deliver quality care in a non-discriminatory manner. The fact that there is a history of discrimination all over the world suggests that people need to overcome some inherent flaw in the human character which can prevent one from being fair and equitable in all treatment. To guard against discrimination and bias, providers must be conscious of how they approach all people and adopt a plan that they can implement that will help them to be fair at all times.

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Fidelity as a traditional biomedical virtue is one of the most fundamental aspects of providing quality care because upon it is based the idea of the Hippocratic Oath. When one is faithful to the oath that one has taken as a health care professional, one will be faithful to all of one’s patients and not show bias or discrimination. This should be a part of one’s policy and it should really be institutionalized so that fairness and equality of care are absolutes that both patients and providers can feel confident will be the outcome no matter the setting.

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The moral issue of whether we should ever clone human beings is one that must be discussed in this day and age because science has made so much advancement in this department, it may eventually be necessary to actually answer this question from a policy point of view. What is morally problematic about the issue of cloning human beings is that it is playing with the very fundamental issue of human life. So many warnings have been given on this subject—and the most dramatic and literary of them is of course the novel by Mary Shelley entitled Frankenstein. It is a book about a doctor who wants to re-create human life, but does so in a way that raises deep questions about morality and philosophy and even theology. Where does life come from and what is the human soul? How sacred and special is this life, and should people have the right to end it when they see fit?

Issues about life and regenerating an entire human are very controversial and it is worrisome enough that it may be necessary to ban cloning of humans altogether. If cloning were to be allowed, very troubling moral and ethical issues could arise within our society as a result. Questions of rights for the clone would have to be addressed. Questions of citizenry and care (is the clone to be used just for harvesting—if so, does this violate basic human rights?—after all, the clone would be human). If cloning were allowed, society (which is already very divided on moral and political and social issues) would become even more polarized: some would view cloning as good and others would view it as a violation of moral and natural law.

There would certainly be the potential for clones to be exploited—especially were a black market to arise wherein cloned human beings were trafficked. Human trafficking is already a problem today (even without clones to think about) and if humans were cloned, it would raise issues about human organ harvesting—clones being developed in insecure sites where….....

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