Abstract

This project explores whether it is ethically permissible for healthcare institutions to deny transplant candidates, who are not vaccinated against COVID-19, the ability to receive an organ transplant. It argues that it is in fact ethical to deny an unvaccinated transplant patient an organ in order to ensure the continuance of a just organ allocation system. In the first chapter, the ethical principles of equity, justice, utility, and autonomy that guide the current organ allocation criteria within the United States are explored using William E. Connolly’s method of “essentially contested concepts” to explain the different interpretations of each principle and to identify which interpretation is most applicable to the issue of organ transplantation. Using the understanding of the ethical principles, chapter two explains the different reasons as to why a patient may refuse the vaccine and analyzes the validity of each reason: medical concerns, religious beliefs, minorities’ systemic distrust of the healthcare system, and political disinformation. Of these, the reasons that are deemed valid must be accounted for in the allocation criteria and may then shift the application of the ethical principles within the organ allocation criteria. Finally, the third chapter applies the content from the first two chapters to three cases where unvaccinated individuals were denied an organ transplant and assesses whether the healthcare institutions’ decisions were ethical. Overall, the findings show that in the majority of cases it is ethically permitted for healthcare institutions to deny unvaccinated transplant patients an organ.

Advisor

Weber, Desiree

Department

Political Science

Disciplines

Political Theory

Keywords

Organs, COVID-19, Vaccines, Ethics, Transplantation

Publication Date

2024

Degree Granted

Bachelor of Arts

Document Type

Senior Independent Study Thesis

Download

Share

COinS
 

© Copyright 2024 Naomi Mann