SECTION 1: Would it be permissible to remove the organs of healthy, deceased prisoners to save the lives of five to eight others who need organ transplants?
Take the viewpoint that laws should be altered so that anyone dying in prison is deemed to consent.
Should prisoners in the nation’s jails and prisons have the same rights to consent as others?
Apparently, the current practice is often to use rewards to obtain the consent of prisoners. Does this seem fair?
SECTION 2:
When did the U.S. decide that people with mental illness have rights?
Discussion Points:
Discuss why operation of the nation’s mental health system might be primarily based on principles of economics rather than evidence-based medicine. While it was very expensive to keep mentally ill people institutionalized, by closing most of the mental hospitals, was the expense of institutionalization simply transferred to other social systems like the criminal justice system and homeless programs? How should the U.S. health care system finance effective out-patient care for the mentally ill?
Take the viewpoint that if people commit crimes, they go to jail or prison. This idea of spending money on special and expensive mental health care comes from bleeding heart liberals.
What should the U.S. health care system do about mentally ill people that fail to follow their therapy and take their medication and are involved in crime; should they be locked in jail or prison?
Should involuntarily committed mentally ill patients have a constitutional right to refuse treatment in the absence of a legal determination of incompetence?
SECTION 3:
What human rights do family members have to weigh in on decisions about hospice care?
How should hospice programs balance the liberty interests of persistent vegetative state hospice patients to refuse life saving hydration and nutrition alongside the right to self determination at the end of life with the states interest in preserving life?
