Film- The Sea Inside. I watched this movie for my high school Spanish class about a man who was quadriplegic after a diving accident. He started a campaign seeking the right of euthanasia to end his own life. Touching and contains some pretty deep ethical questions.
There's a really good movie called Never Let Me Go in which the characters are clones raised in order to provide organs for their original. The characters never really get to live a full life as their donations will inevitably lead to their own death. Though we don't have human cloning as of now, it could become a grim reality in the future and we must decide where we draw the line.
My Sister's Keeper --> Book and Movie..great ethical questions! The parents decide to genetically mutate and produce a child in order to use bone marrow as well as anything else possible for their first child who has leukemia. The daughter who was genetically created ends up reaching out to her own lawyer to hopefully make it stop. This could even be looked at as looking at a person only as a means (Kant).
The novel House of the Scorpion is a very interesting novel. It is about a young boy who was conceived in a lab so that he may grow and donate all of his organs to keep his grandfather alive. This challenges the ethics in the Biomedical field.
Prison Break would be a great example for many biomedical ethics issues. This is related due to the interactions between the main character and the doctor that works at the prison. I know that Dr. Cate quotes the show often in class, but the example that I am using is a point in the show where the relationship between the prisoner and the doctor exceeds just a patient-doctor relationship. This compromises the doctor's decision making and causes some drastic changes in events that are ethically arguable.
Limitless is a good movie that is relevant It's a movie about a man who takes experimental drugs that gives him the ability to focus he writes a whole book in a short amount of time. Once they took them they became addicted to them needing to take more and more, which ultimately ended in death
Though it's been a while since I read the book, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley deals with several relevant issues that underly a fictitious future dystopia. Though the future in the novel looks great and seems efficient, there are many horrors that lay beneath the gleaming surface. A drug called soma produces the greatest feeling of elation possible and affects one's sense of time, though one never wishes to come down. This drug, though fictitious, shows just how medicine could be abused by practices and cause harm to the individual even if it seems to be great.
Another issue in the book is that nobody merely grows old in appearance, they just die (not the same, but related to trying to prevent aging by cosmetic surgery). Is it morally acceptable to not have your body decay?
At one point in the story, a character who has been removed from the greater society and has become elderly is given soma and dies in a haze of ecstasy, just because she doesn't fit their beautiful, perfect society. This is euthanasia and is a controversial topic in the field of biomedical ethics.
I definitely recommend this book as it is a warning to our times about the dangers of attempting perfection (though the book was written in 1931). It makes you ask the question: "Is advancement (in medicine) always a good thing?"
Here's a quote from the book that gets at the idea that perfection simply isn't "grand"...
“Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.” ― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
Relevant film #1: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Everyone should watch this film, if they have not already.
ReplyDeleteRelevant film #2: The Elephant Man. This movie is interesting as well about an intelligent man who no one notices due to his physical appearance.
Film- The Sea Inside. I watched this movie for my high school Spanish class about a man who was quadriplegic after a diving accident. He started a campaign seeking the right of euthanasia to end his own life. Touching and contains some pretty deep ethical questions.
ReplyDeleteThere's a really good movie called Never Let Me Go in which the characters are clones raised in order to provide organs for their original. The characters never really get to live a full life as their donations will inevitably lead to their own death. Though we don't have human cloning as of now, it could become a grim reality in the future and we must decide where we draw the line.
ReplyDeleteMy Sister's Keeper --> Book and Movie..great ethical questions! The parents decide to genetically mutate and produce a child in order to use bone marrow as well as anything else possible for their first child who has leukemia. The daughter who was genetically created ends up reaching out to her own lawyer to hopefully make it stop. This could even be looked at as looking at a person only as a means (Kant).
ReplyDeleteCAUTION: it's a tear jerker!
The novel House of the Scorpion is a very interesting novel. It is about a young boy who was conceived in a lab so that he may grow and donate all of his organs to keep his grandfather alive. This challenges the ethics in the Biomedical field.
ReplyDeletePrison Break would be a great example for many biomedical ethics issues. This is related due to the interactions between the main character and the doctor that works at the prison. I know that Dr. Cate quotes the show often in class, but the example that I am using is a point in the show where the relationship between the prisoner and the doctor exceeds just a patient-doctor relationship. This compromises the doctor's decision making and causes some drastic changes in events that are ethically arguable.
ReplyDeleteLimitless is a good movie that is relevant
ReplyDeleteIt's a movie about a man who takes experimental drugs that gives him the ability to focus he writes a whole book in a short amount of time. Once they took them they became addicted to them needing to take more and more, which ultimately ended in death
Though it's been a while since I read the book, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley deals with several relevant issues that underly a fictitious future dystopia. Though the future in the novel looks great and seems efficient, there are many horrors that lay beneath the gleaming surface. A drug called soma produces the greatest feeling of elation possible and affects one's sense of time, though one never wishes to come down. This drug, though fictitious, shows just how medicine could be abused by practices and cause harm to the individual even if it seems to be great.
ReplyDeleteAnother issue in the book is that nobody merely grows old in appearance, they just die (not the same, but related to trying to prevent aging by cosmetic surgery). Is it morally acceptable to not have your body decay?
At one point in the story, a character who has been removed from the greater society and has become elderly is given soma and dies in a haze of ecstasy, just because she doesn't fit their beautiful, perfect society. This is euthanasia and is a controversial topic in the field of biomedical ethics.
I definitely recommend this book as it is a warning to our times about the dangers of attempting perfection (though the book was written in 1931). It makes you ask the question: "Is advancement (in medicine) always a good thing?"
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DeleteHere's a quote from the book that gets at the idea that perfection simply isn't "grand"...
Delete“Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World