Ethical Issue Case study - Essay Example

There are existing statutes that cover the case of patients like the Somali immigrant. Several cases have already been resolved by the American courts with regards to treatment to forced treatment of people with contagious diseases. This coerced consent, according to Scutchfield and Keck, is not obtained as a sham of an informed consent, but as a way to obviate the need for physically forcing the treatment on the patient (72). I can also, as an alternative, resort to outright coercion. While this is extremely rare, this is not something that is unheard of.

The case is quite extraordinary. First, the patient refuses treatment because tuberculosis is supposedly a death warrant in Somali culture. Secondly, her family also acceded to her wishes and supported her decision. Finally, there are no other medical alternatives left that would accommodate the cultural beliefs of the patient. Asking for legal advice to this action is crucial as well. But this is a matter of life and death and the fact that there is the danger of to the public variable. The civil authorities are always found to rule in support of healthcare decisions made in emergency situations that are dispensed with in good faith.

The patient can only contest a forced treatment if they could provide evidence that: 1) the patient’s decision was contrary to what it would have been considered consequence of the involuntariness; and, 2) the treatment resulted into harm for the woman. I am basing my decision out of the principle of Act-Utilitarianism which argues that an action is right or wrong according to the consequences it resulted. If the result is good, then the act itself must be good as well and vice versa. Put in another way, the rightness or wrongness of an action is determined by its utility or those that are intrinsically valuable under the utilitarian’s theory of value (Thomas and Waluchow 19).

One may argue that Act Utilitarianism is just another version of the-end-justifies-the-means argument but such is not the case. Utilitarianism is not really about instances like fraud being committed in order to achieve some higher purpose. Instead, there is a moral dimension, which requires a moral agent to decide for the achievement of happiness and benefits for all. The decision-maker under Act Utilitarianism always makes the following claim: An act is right and only if there is no other action I could have done instead which either (a) would have produced a greater balance of utility over disutility; or (b) would have produced a smaller balance of disutility over utility (19).

There is the need to decide in a forward-looking manner with an emphasis on the examination of the impact of such decision to those affected individuals. It is ethical because, first, it is unselfish. The decision-maker makes the decision for the good of all. Secondly, it promotes happiness, well-being or positive benefits to those affected. In moral theology (from where most of our concepts of goodness and evil comes from) there is always a concept of the unavoidable evil in order to achieve good results if that is the only way to do so.

This rationale is expressed in a duty-based morality that a doctor can use in order to address the problem posed by the woman refusing treatment. I would like to discuss the behavior of the patient from the utilitarian perspective. She is suffering from a