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Writer's pictureJohn B. Parisutham

Contemporary Ethical Issues by Manadir Mohammad Mahi

Cloning:

Cloning is a recent scientific approach for duplicating one organism. It is done by taking DNA from one parent organism and artificially incubating it in suitable medium for certain period of time. After that when the child organism grows up, it carries the exact same characteristics of the parent organism. This technology has been done for testing purpose on animals. But doing it for human raises a whole new level of ethical questions. It shakes off the ground of human rights issues such as individuality and uniqueness of every human being. Also it creates social identity problems. Cloning has many potential use in our world, but it has to be justified by the proper ethical judgments. That is why cloning research is now strictly restricted only in some facilities of world.

Abortion:

Abortion means the unnatural termination of pregnancy by removal or expulsion of a fetus or embryo from uterus. In my point of view, abortion is totally unethical. An unborn baby who has nothing to do with its parent’s wrong doing, has to pay the ultimate price. Often the accidental pregnancy and health issue of mother is put in front to support abortion, yet abortion’s need cannot be justified. From my point of view, if the mother is unable or physically unstable to give birth they should not go for a baby. They can adopt an orphan, it will be a perfect solution to enjoy motherhood without any problem. And nowadays maternal healthcare is respected, families take the mother for regular check-up in clinics. If any health issue in mother’s body, it can be diagnosed earlier. Another point is about the teen pregnancy or illegal intercourse. As our societies are spoiled with illegal relationships, it is common to see illegal sexual intimacy and later on unwanted pregnancy, especially for teenagers and young unemployed people. That time, fear from social or family restrictions gave the idea of abortion to them. As a result, we find fetus or immature human baby in drains, toilets and other places. It is such a shame for us to see this happening. So in my opinion, no excuse can justify the necessity of abortion, abortion will never be happened if we human are ethical, aware of ourselves and sincere to our religion.

Surrogacy:

Surrogacy is carrying and giving birth to one’s baby in another’s body. To be clear, when a lady physically unable to carry or give birth to a child, a surrogate mother is asked to carry and give birth to a child, legally this child will be the client’s child and the surrogate mother will be paid. Thus it looks more like a business. One’s baby in another’s body. It is unethical in some sense, though some argue for the sake of mother’s health. Some say it as an option for infertility. From my opinion, there is a division, logical and ethical. Sometimes, logical and ethical both support one same cause, sometimes the logical and ethical take different stand for a cause. In case of surrogacy, logical may support it as an option for infertile mother, but ethical may not support surrogacy because it is like a trade of baby and ignores the divine relationship of mother and baby which start from the beginning of pregnancy. As the current mother didn’t hold the child in her own womb, will be the relationship that much heavenly. Also, the trend of surrogacy may change the trend of having conventional motherhood. So we need to be ethical in judgment to imply surrogacy in our lives.

Euthanasia:

Euthanasia or mercy killing is a new term for ending a life ‘peacefully’. When sustaining a life becomes a burden to others or itself, people choose euthanasia as a choice of relief. It is a matter an ethical consideration to put an end to a life in this way. The decision comes sometimes from the own self, sometimes from others. To be clear take an example of an ill person staying in a hospital for long time. Doctors said the family that, that person may never come back to a normal life. And the expenses for medication led the family near to bankruptcy. In this situation what will be the ethical judgment for the family is a great question. One can never be able to answer this question properly. Because it depends on different people and their ideology. Also if the sick person decides by himself to perform euthanasia on him will it be a suicide or not, it is a debatable question. Besides, if the family and sick person no party says anything, will it be ethical for the doctor to take responsibility and stop the family and patient’s pain by doing euthanasia, it is also a matter of ethical judgment. Thus the ethical issues surrounding the mercy killing is too high for all the parties involved.

Suicide:

Suicide is one of the most common yet most controversial ethical issue we face. I have right of my own, so I can decide whether to live or die. This statement may come from a person willing to commit suicide, but this doesn’t fulfil the justification for a suicide. No one is alone in this world. His or her life is connected with many other lives, directly or indirectly. So to put an end to own life doesn’t mean that other lives will have no impact from that death. As a social animal human need to stay together for responsibilities. It is believed that, when a person is afraid of his responsibility, when he is becomes feeble minded, he tries to escape by committing suicide. Another reason might come, committing suicide needs a lot of courage, as you yourself is finishing your valuable life, where people wish for immortality. Why is that happening? The answer is not straight forward. The most common reasons are failure in love, unemployment, family problem, social separation, psychological disorder, failure in exam, or to devote oneself fighting for a cause and so on. So the ethical question comes, is it ethical to commit suicide and finish off a god gifted life? What we can do stop this suicide from happening. It is near-impossible to answer as I think. I believe we just need to focus on our goal and be responsible for all the person and belongings we are connected with, rather than being selfish and thinking about only personal gain or happiness.

Same Sex Marriage:

Same Sex marriage is a marriage between two persons of same biological gender. It is not a recent phenomenon. Many civilizations have been practicing this from prehistoric ages. Even in many Holy Scriptures mention about this practice, and describe the ultimate fate of those poor sinners. Same sex marriage was considered as a very shameful and perverted disorder, illegal in almost every country. Recently as some countries legalize this irregular marriage system, people are motivated in doing so. Activists and human rights agencies are raising voices for legalizing transgender marriages, creating LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) rights in constitution, as they say, to marry is those two persons own wish, we should interfere there. There have been argument for and against same sex marriage. I think this is not fare and this will destroy the basic definition of marriage, which can only between man and women. Also from my religious respective I know this as Haram or strictly prohibited. Thus the same sex marriage is still under heavy among people of all classes.

Animal Rights:

Human and animal are inevitably interdepend on each other for sustaining life on earth. Increasing violence against animals are generating new ethical issues about this. Human is destroying animal and their habitats for the sake of building new factories and accumulating wealth. Human being is forgetting the ecological and environmental balance maintained by both human, animal and plants. It is totally unethical to kill or captivate animals inhumanly. Thus far Universal Declaration of Animal Rights has been introduced to preserve the animal rights, which announces the equal right of animals. So I think animal rights issues are very important for us to consider.

Internet privacy:

Internet is part of our life now. We cannot do anything other than internet today. From communication to shopping we are relying on internet services. As we get more involved in internet services, the more security we need. Nowadays the privacy issues are one of the biggest concerns of internet. Because of the security breach many business and organizations are facing information assurance problem, governments are losing valuable confidential information which may cause sovereignty problem. Relationships are highly vulnerable due to this privacy problem. Divorce and illegal relationships are happening due to easy availability of personal information. Cybercrimes are increasing by the hackers and viruses. Many organizations are at risk of losing their position due to this hacking issue. I think, the ethical issues related with this hacking and abusing someone’s private information is great. On the other hand, sometimes hacking is done on behalf of mass people, when there is corrupted official or organization. Hackers try to expose their secret and bring them down to secure people’s right. Such as WikiLeaks’s attempt to reveal secrets of certain degraded officials and governments was highly appreciated by mass population of world. So internet privacy needs a great matter of care and ethical approach I believe.

Death Penalty:

Killing someone is completely unethical, but when it comes as a death penalty, it changes the scenario.  If someone kills some other people, is it ethical to kill that guilty man? We simply cannot answer, and there are many arguments behind this. In many countries it has been banned for human rights issues, but most of the countries it is used to punish and more importantly to teach a lesson for other guilt’s for discouragement. I believe death penalty is good to reduce of stop crime rate, otherwise the criminals will not fear the law anymore and the country will definitely go to ruin. Also for the human rights issues, there are many ways of giving capital punishment. So we can choose a less painful or faster killing means. Yet again another ethical issues come to us, is it ethical to give less pain to some criminals who destroyed many peoples’ families and dream of living?

Insider Trading:

Insider trading is not a recent issue in business or an organization. There have been traitor and betrayals since the origin of human. As hatred, dissatisfaction or greed grows up inside a workers mind, s/he decides to trade off Company’s confidential information to other parties. This may lead to a total stand down of a big organization. From the common perspective it is wrong and unethical surely, but why that particular person or persons did that insider trading, that is also a matter or investigation. The reason might be poor communication or maltreatment from the owner, insufficient wage and so on. It is important to remember that insider trading is a big threat to every single small or big organization. It is compulsory for the members of the organization to be committed to one common goal and motivation. We need to keep trust and patience among us to stop this insider trading from happening.

In tutorial class, we had an interesting discussion about this contemporary ethical issues. We had to ask two of the representatives from our class members, we asked several ethical questions, and our representatives tried to answer form own understanding. It was very helpful to clarify our own thinking and ethical learning.

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