Bioethics: a Diet for Puppies - Assignment Example

Bioethics Question One Hypothesis: A vegetarian diet is better than a meat-containing diet for puppies after they have been weaned (i.e. when they’re at least 12 weeks old). The first thing to do when creating an experiment to test the hypothesis above is to define some of the important words contained within it. Firstly, the vegetarian diet will contain no meat, but will be balanced to include all of the relevant nutrients that a puppy needs, taken from literature. A meat-containing diet will be designed in a similar way, but some of the nutrients will be taken from meat. The word ‘better’ is harder to define. However, it has been decided that certain elements of the puppies’ health will be measured before and after four weeks of taking either of these diets. Weight measurements will be taken, and these can be compared with results from the literature about what is healthy and normal for the particular breed of dog. Secondly, energy levels will be measured, again based upon what is normal for the breed. This will be subjective and assessed by trainers who do not know which diet the puppies are taken, to make sure there is no bias. Finally, blood pressure measurements will be taken weekly throughout the course of the experiment to ensure that the puppies are healthy and to avoid ethical problems of the experiment. Another important part of designing a scientific experiment is to work out the participants, or the ‘sample’. Scientific studies work best with larger sample sizes to eliminate bias (Shannon & Kockler, 2009). When working with dogs, it can be beneficial to use a variety of breeds to ensure that the hypothesis and results can be applied to all dogs. Therefore it was decided that 100 dogs would be tested, 50 on each diet. 25 different breeds (or combination of breeds in mongrels) will be used, so that 2 of each breed will be taking part in each diet group. It is important to randomize the dogs that are chosen to go on each diet. Grouping each breed as a four and then randomly assigning them a diet is the best way of doing this (Shannon & Kockler, 2009). It is important that each one follows the diet strictly for the four weeks of the experiment, as any deviation from this could cause a false result. This means the dogs must be observed at all times to ensure that they do not eat any food from another dog’s meal. Each dog must also have the same amount of exercise and be housed in the same size kennel as the other dogs from that breed to ensure fairness when measuring the results. Differences in exercise could cause a major difference in the weight measurement particularly, and this would be a confounding variable. Each dog would also have to take their meals at the same time, as this could also potentially have an effect on the variables being measured at the end of the test. It is proposed that they would take three meals each day, one at 8am, one at 12pm and one at 6pm. Dogs would also be allowed four treats a day, vegetarian or meat, with the same calorific and nutritional value between the two types of treat. This is to allow the dogs to retain some type of normal diet during the experiment to make sure the effects seen are not just a result of the experimental method. Question Two Do you think gestational surrogacy is baby selling? Gestational surrogacy is when a baby is created from a mother’s egg and a father’s sperm and then implanted into a usually non-related woman to carry to term. This means that the baby is genetically the parents, and is usually done in cases where the mother is unable to carry the baby herself in cases of hysterectomy or diabetes, for example. This is interesting as women are usually paid to carry the baby by the parents, and therefore could be seen as a form of baby selling. However, I believe that it is not baby selling as the child itself is biologically related to the parents and will not be ‘sold’ itself to them. It is more like renting a uterus for a short period of time. To argue this, I am going to approach it using consequentialism. This theory is based on the thought that the consequences of the act are the main way of ascertaining whether an act is moral or not. In this case, there are a few consequences to consider. The first is that the baby will be genetically related to the parents, and gestational surrogacy is usually done for sound medical reasons. This means that the consequences for the parents and the child will be very similar to that of a typical pregnancy, except without the medical problems that sometimes accompany pregnancy. Any consequences are usually with the surrogate mother. She may experience health problems herself. Additionally, she may form an attachment to the baby, which she will not be able to keep; an emotional consequence. However, this will be offset by the fact that she knows it is not her child (and therefore it cannot be considered baby selling) and the fact she will get a financial reward for merely carrying the child (rather than for the child itself). Should gestational surrogate motherhood be prohibited? As outlined above, it is obvious that, whilst gestational surrogacy is far from perfect, it can be argued that it is a safe way for some women to carry children who may otherwise be unable to do so. It is not really the same as ‘baby selling’, as the child itself is not genetically belonging to the surrogate mother, but could be considered as renting out a part of the body of the woman. However, there are some ethical questions to be raised in the case of women who use gestational surrogacy for cosmetic or superficial reasons. Some women use this to prevent them needing extended time away from their job, to preserve their figure, or because they simply don’t want to be pregnant. In these cases, it may be harder to come to an ethical judgment about whether gestational surrogate motherhood should be prohibited. Whilst women who have health problems may feel the need to use this method because they want a child, it is harder to draw an ethical line when considering women who do this for personal reasons. Again referring to consequentialism, the benefits for this women (of say, preserving a good figure) may be less than the risks for the surrogate. In this case, the consequences would justify a prohibition of surrogate motherhood. It is hard to judge this from an outsider perspective in quantitative terms. Therefore it seems logical that this type of motherhood should not be prohibited, as there is no concrete way of using consequentialism to justify this action. Question Four “Many people argue that one should be consistent in one’s position on killing. That is, if one is against abortion, then one should be against war or capital punishment. Do you agree? How would you make exceptions? Many people have strong ethical views about abortion, war, and other actions that could be classified as ‘killing’ or even ‘murder’ by some. Abortion involves the termination of a pre-term fetus, and therefore some believe it is killing a person. War obviously ends in killing other individuals, despite the fact that it may be for a ‘cause’ or for the greater good. Capital punishment is another topic which people feel strongly about, and involves the termination of a life in an eye for an eye fashion. However, despite the fact that all three could be classified as killing, there are those that believe in capital punishment but are strongly against all types of abortion, and vice versa. However, I feel personally that picking and choosing among these opinions is wrong and that people should have a consistent view of each type of ‘killing’. I will be using deontological thinking to back up this belief, which is shared by many others. Deontology is the belief that ethical decisions are based upon a certain set of rules, and that ethical judgments should be made based upon these rules rather than on the consequences of the action or on personal belief. In this case, it is obvious that a moral judgment about abortion is based on the thought that it is considered murder, as the fetus could grow up to be a healthy, functioning member of society. Following these rules, however, a criminal who is awaiting capital punishment also has the potential to become a fully-functioning member of society who can contribute, although this may be difficult. On the other hand, many people feel that a fetus is not the same as a human and therefore it is not ‘murder’ or ‘killing’ to abort a fetus. In the same way, capital punishment can be seen as killing someone who is not a person, as they have disobeyed one of the ‘rules’ of belonging to a community. Usually capital punishment is used for those who are murderers and are deemed to have no way of returning to normal society. In this way, it would seem normal that you should believe in abortion and capital punishment, as you are using a certain set of rules to define what is killing a human and what is not. It is difficult to know how to make exceptions in cases like these. It could be said that one factor that plays a part in making ethical rules about these cases is innocence. The unborn child is evidently innocent as it has not had time to lose this innocence. At the same time, the victims of warfare are also often innocent, but many people support this. A way of judging this would be to use utilitarianism and decide what the ‘greater good’ would be. If the baby and mother would have a bad life (or may even die) without an abortion, the greater good would be to terminate before the pregnancy comes to term. A similar judgment can be used to justify warfare; if a few people need to die to ensure the freedom of others, then this may be an exception to the rules outlined above. Sources Jecker, Nancy. Bioethics. Jones & Bartlett Publishers, 2011. Print. Resnik, David B. The Ethics of Science: An Introduction. Routledge, 1998. Print. Shannon, Thomas A., and Nicholas J. Kockler. An Introduction to Bioethics. 4 Rev Upd. Paulist Press, 2009. Print. Read More