Christine Joy Molina

BSN 2B

Organ transplants

Imagine you are a surgeon. Five patients in the hospital are in urgent need of different organ
transplants to survive. One of them needs a heart, one a lung, one a liver, and the other two each a
kidney. All five happen to have the same rare blood type, so it is hard to find the right donor. At this
time, a foreign traveler came to the hospital for a simple body check. By chance, he has the same rare
blood type as theirs. With your expertise, as long as you use some simple medication to end the life of
the traveler painlessly and without the notice of others, then his organs can save the five people
awaiting organ transplants.

Question for discussion:

What would you do? Would you kill one person to save five people?

First and foremost, killing is morally wrong. Since childhood, I was taught that causing harm to
others is wrong and is prohibited by the bible. Next, one of the oaths that doctors take is the promise of
‘do no harm’. Doctors are expected to save lives but not take it from a person, which is why studying for
them is an endless job because this allows them to figure out ways to save more lives. In this particular
situation, if I were the surgeon, I would definitely not kill the innocent foreign traveler. However, I would
tell him about the cases of my patients who need urgent organ transplants and ask him if he could be of
any help. And if by chance he agrees to help, it is still up to him what conditions and terms we would
take throughout the process. At least this would increase the number of patients that I get to save. Also,
this particular event wouldn’t be the reason for me to stop looking for other compatible organ donors
because I don’t want to give up on my patients.

Killing one person to save five people would still mean you have murdered somebody, and
saving five doesn’t make you abstain from this. If I could save even one from the five with the help of
the foreign traveler, this would help lessen the burden on me. But if I would choose to kill the foreign
traveler and save my patients, this would take a big toll on my conscience. For me, both situations are
different. My patients’ cases are inevitable and it isn’t me who caused their sickness. On the other hand,
killing one person to save others would mean that I caused the death of a person, which would probably
give me nightmares and eat up my conscience. But let’s say that I chose the latter, for sure my patients
would like to know from whom they got their organs. And me telling them that I killed someone for
them to live would also harm their conscience and later, probably, affect their health.