Question

You are the head of a small aid agency in Congolo. The mission of your agency is to provide health services for refugees who have fled the various civil wars in the region. In recent years you have worked with a number of non-governmental organizations, such as C.A.R.E, Doctors Between Borders and the Universal Children’s Health Fund. Your agency focuses on giving intensive health to small communities. You are now working in a camp of fifty people.

Because of a particular parasite in the water that destroys the cornea of the eye, ten people in the camp have gone blind; half of them are children. Except for their ability to see, their health is reasonably good, given the conditions of the camp.

You contact Doctors Between Borders and they tell you that they will have two ophthalmologists in the area next week, but that the only thing they can do for the people that have gone blind is to give them cornea transplants. They could do the operations, but they said it was impossible to get corneas for transplant in Africa.

A few days later, the area director of Doctors BetweenBorders calls and tells you that a Tsjakestanese aid agency has twenty corneas and would be willing to exchange them for a truck and ten cases of medical supplies. This strikes you as odd and so you ask: “Where did they get the corneas?”. She thentells you that the corneas were donated to the Tsjakestanese aid agency by wealthy Tokolese business man. He bought them from a middle man who buys body parts for transplants from prisons. The prisons carefully execute the prisoners and then take out the livers and corneas for resale. Evidently, corrupt prison wardens make huge profits from this practice and his makes them very liberal with executions, especially of political prisoners.

You tell the director that the origin of these Tsjakestanesecorneas makes you uncomfortable. The director says: “We have no problem with using them. If you don’t want them, I’ll give them to someone else. There are too many people in need here.” She says.ou have only one day to decide. Tomorrow I have to radio the plane in the capital and tell it where to go next.”

Questions:

1. Describe the ethical dilemma that you are facing and identify the relevant stakeholders

2. Analyze your ethical dilemma from the perspective of each of the following decision-making approaches:

a. Consequentialist

b. Deontological

c. Virtue Ethics

3. What would you do? Explain and justify your answer based on your analysis in Question 2

Answer 1

Answer 1= The main dilemma is whether to use the corneas that are being occupied illegally or without the consent of the person who is supposed to donate it or to leave the kids who lost their vision due to the virus and can have their vision back if they can have the cornea transplant.

Answer 2= In the case of the Consequentialism ethical theory, the ethicality of the act is determined on the basis of the correctness of the consequences. If we follow this theory, then there will be no harm in using those corneas as it will be beneficial for the people who lose their visions.

When we follow the Deontological theory of ethics, it indicates that the ethicality of any action depends upon the correctness and incorrectness of that actions as per a number of rules rather than judging the consequence of that decision So in this theory, the use of corneas will not be ethical as these are obtained through illegal and immoral means.

In the case of virtue of ethics, the main consideration is given to virtues of mind, character, and sense of honesty. So in this theory too, we will not use those corneas as the method of obtaining was not honest or correct.

Answer 3=I would follow the Consequentialism ethical theory as the main importance here I will give to the benefits that can be obtained by the majority of the individuals and it is to use corneas so that the vision of so many individuals can be regained who are already suffering from the other problems in their lives