Desire to have Children Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Desire to have Children - Essay Example Finally, they decided to attempt in vitro fertilization. Mary Sue supplied nine eggs for the procedure, and her husband supplied sperm, which medical experts used to fertilize all the nine eggs in a laboratory. The medical personnel implanted two eggs in Mary Sue’s womb, but pregnancy did not result. The medical personnel froze the remaining seven fertilized eggs in order to preserve them for future use. Sometime later, the couple divorced, but they disagreed on who between them should claim the fertilized eggs and to what use they should be put. Mar Sue claimed ownership of the fertilized eggs and expressed the desire to have them implanted in her body. Junior opposed Mary Sue’s claim of ownership and intention to implant the eggs. Instead, he wanted them destroyed. Mary Sue filed a law suit in court regarding the case. The judge ruled in her favor and granted her temporary custody of the fertilized eggs, so as to avail Mary Sue the chance to achieve a normal pregnancy by having medical experts implant the eggs in her womb. The rationale of this decision was that human life begins at conception and, therefore, the fertilized eggs were persons who have the right to the provision of suitable conditions and support that would allow them to develop into normal human beings. The judge added that the final custody of the child, child support, and visitation would be decided by the same court if one of the eggs results in birth. II. Ethical Question to be Answered Was Judge W. Dale Young morally justified in regarding the fertilized eggs as persons that have a right to life and not as property? III. Proposed Answers to Ethical Question Judge Young’s decision was not morally justified because the frozen fertilized eggs were not naturally conceived and, therefore, this argument does not parallel the ones put forward by opponents of abortion. It is appropriate to regard the fertilized eggs as property because medical experts created them artificiall y and, therefore, are the creation of human beings. In addition, the fertilized eggs do not have a societal, moral responsibility and; thus, they cannot be regarded as persons. A person has a moral role to play in society, the fertilized eggs do not. IV. Objections to Proposed Answers and Responses to the Objections Objection (1): The conceptus is a living human being because the continuous process of growth and development of human beings begins at conception. Therefore, the frozen fertilized eggs should be regarded as conceptus since they came into existence as a result of conception. Whether conception takes place in a woman’s body or scientists induce it artificially in the laboratory, fact is it leads to the creation of a human life form, the zygote. Response (1): The conceptus does not have any of the functions of a human being and, therefore, cannot be bestowed with the same status as a human being living in the real world. Fertilized eggs are just a mass of cells whic h scientists or medical experts keep alive through artificial means, without whose assistance they will surely die. A zygote that medical experts create and preserve through an artificially regulated process is not a real form of human life. This is because it is not supported or sustained in any way by the life processes that manifest themselves through nature. The same way that a graft of skin cells obtained from a person represents a living part of that person, it cannot be regarded as a person because they lack any of the moral functions associated with a person. Objection (2): God imparts a soul onto human beings at conception and not at birth since birth is just a transition from the womb into the world. The life of the baby did not begin at birth, but it was alive from the moment of conception. Since every human

Health, Disability and Long Term Care Insurance Essay

Health, Disability and Long Term Care Insurance - Essay Example This crisis is a fact and statistics are good enough to prove its validity. USA spends twice more on its annual healthcare then does 19 of the developed countries in North America and Europe. The percentage of GDP allotted to health seems to be at a rise since 1997 when it reached to 15.7% in the year 2005, and as projected by the agencies of Medicare and Mediaid this percentage would further increase in the next 10 years to a figure of almost 17.5% of the GDP. Yet 15.6% of the American population is still uninsured. (services, april,2005) For a country that has the highest expenditure rates on healthcare, it is quite shocking that the public gets to face the crisis of high rising prices for healthcare. The two major problems faced by the healthcare system of USA include rapid increase in the expenditures made on health and disabilities and high costs for administration of health care issues which account for at least 26% of the total money in healthcare. The reasons for the rising c osts are many including the dependence on the high costs of new medical technologies, drugs and tests, the rising population of the elderly, the rising frequencies of road traffic accidence and criminal activities requiring medical attention, intensive work hours and rising pays of health care professionals and doctors, high awareness of medical problems requiring immediate and most of the times unnecessary medical attention, untoward issues like fraud and issues causing waste of administrative money, the internal situation and inflation rates of the health care system and many more reasons. TYPES OF MEDICAL COVERAGE Broadly speaking, health insurance can be of two types. First is the group health insurance in which an employee and his immediate family are covered by an insurance company that is either partially or mostly paid by the employer. This type of insurance comprises as high as 90% of the total insurance issued by the insurance companies. (DeNavas-Walt, 2008) Sometimes this type of insurance may not provide the necessary protection that an individual requires; in that case an additional aid with the help of individual insurance can be purchased. Second type is the individual insurance plan. This type of plan, as the name suggests, is individually tailored to anyone’s needs. This type of insurance is usually acquired when the group insurance is not enough or requires certain addition. In that case one can choose their own preference of insurance company and select as much coverage as they require. This means an extensive browsing of the options available in the market as the mark ups and premiums on different plans by different companies vary to a great extent. The group and individual insurance plans provide different types of coverage. These policies further include the following types of coverage: 1) MAJOR MEDICAL EXPENSE INSURANCE Major medical expense insurance is a type of insurance which covers the excess medical expenses incurred due to sudden accidents, injuries or severe illnesses. It is usually in relation to the basic individual or group insurance that would provide the baseline insurance for the regular medical expenses. This type of insurance only covers the excess and high bills that are often faced after an accidental situation or a severe illness. Usually the amount that can be paid through this type of insurance is quite high which requires the premium to be covered by the individual through various ways.