Human Life (Medical Ethics) exam

Here is the oral exam I'm giving to my seminarians this week.

The exam will be no more than 30 minutes long. Bring seven of the questions that you have prepared. We will discuss 1-3 of them. The presumption is that the question raised is not of a personal nature. In other words, there is no hidden pastoral situation that the person is trying to get at indirect answer to. Nonetheless, you do need to be pastorally sensitive to the possibility that the person is inadequately catechized or committed to a Catholic view of things. You need to explain in a way that is consonant with the teachings of the Catholic Church. You need to show sufficient medical knowledge. You need to use at least one of the 13 principles from Ashley and O'Rourke's Health Care Ethics accurately. By the way, you are NOT going to be graded on whether you agree with me on the particular issue so long as you don’t argue against a clearly taught Church position.

1. Can a Catholic doctor prescript Oral Contraceptive Pills?
2. Can a doctor administer a lethal dose for a state execution?
3. Can a pharmacist fill a prescription for OCPs?
4. Can a physician abort a baby in the case of ectopic pregnancy?
5. Can a quadriplegic get married?
6. Can a rape victim use emergency contraception?
7. Can a retarded person get married?
8. Can handicapped get married?
9. Can a person get a tattoo?
10. Can a man masturbate in order to collect a sperm sample for medical evaluation?
11. Can a person scatter the ashes of the deceased if the deceased wanted it done?
12. Can the mentally handicapped get married?
13. If it is likely to shorten a person’s life, may the doctors increase morphine to reduce significant pain?
14. If suicide is a mortal sin, why do we have funerals for people who committed suicide?
15. Is Body Worlds okay?
16. Is cloning okay?
17. Is Gamete Inter-fallopian Transfer (GIFT) okay?
18. Is it ethical to put a memory chip in a person’s head?
19. Is it immoral to use caffeine as a stimulant?
20. Is IVF okay?
21. Is plastic surgery permissible?
22. May a Catholic hospital rent space to a clinic in which the doctors prescribe contraceptives?
23. May a medical professional refer a patient to a doctor who will perform a procedure forbidden by the Church?
24. May a woman adopt a frozen embryo and have a child from it?
25. May a person cease my renal dialysis?
26. May a person donate his kidney to his brother, who needs a transplant?
27. May a person escort a woman to an abortuary if he’s tried to talk her out of an
    abortion and she insists anyway?
28. May a parent use immunizations for his or her children that were developed from aborted fetuses?
29. May a Catholic vote for a pro-choice presidential candidate?
30. May a Catholic vote for a pro-choice governor, senator, or legislator?
31. May one use condoms to reduce the incidents of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa?
32. Must a person seek a reversal of his elective sterilization (tubal ligation or vasectomy) once he realizes it was morally incompatible with personalized sexuality?
33. May a Catholic vote for legislation that allows some abortions to be legal, but outlaws others?
34. Should a Catholic have a living will?
35. Should the state require Human Papilloma Virus inoculation for all girls under the age of 12?
36. Should we distribute condoms in jails?
37. Was what they did to Terri Schiavo right?
38. What do you think of Ashley’s treatment?
39. When can you remove hydration and nutrition from a person in a PVS?
40. When is it okay to put the elderly in a nursing home?
41. What if you find a great chiropractor who is also heavy into new age thinking?
42. If differentiation doesn’t occur until a few days after conception, why can’t be
    use emergency contraception that destroys the undifferentiated cells?
43. Can we use cybernetics to enhance the functionality of the human person?
44. Can we use drug therapy to enhance the mental functionality of a person?
45. Is national health care like they have in the UK and Canada a good thing?
46. Should a woman over forty get amniocentesis on her unborn baby to test for Down’s syndrome?
47. Should the mentally ill be institutionalized?
48. Should a Catholic university that has a nursing school hire a moral theologian who publicly challenges the teachings of the Church on abortion and homosexuality?
49. What should a Catholic hospital administration do about a physician who has privileges at the hospital and prescribes contraception and refers abortions in his private practice?
50. Would it be ethical to use hormonal treatments to affect the phenotypic gender of an unborn child?
51. May a person use OCPs to treat acne?
52. May a person use OCPs to treat endometriosis?
53. Shouldn’t we stop all this protesting and politicking about abortion and concentrate on caring for women in difficult situations?
54. May a person get a hysterectomy to avoid the awful menopausal symptoms that the women in the family are usually subject to?
55. May a person have labor induced a week before a big event like a graduation so that the birth doesn’t interfere with participation in the event?
56. May a Catholic hospital rent space to a clinic that performs abortions?
57. May a Catholic hospital rent space to a clinic that performs elective sterilizations?
58. May a person be a janitor at an abortion clinic?
59. May a Catholic campaign for a pro-choice candidate?
60. May a legislator vote for a comprehensive health care reform bill that contains a
    provision to fund the distribution of condoms to public schools?
61. If a couple is in general open to life, but is having a particularly difficult financial
    crisis, may they use contraceptives?
62. Isn’t NFP just another form of contraception?
63. Can drug treatment be used to increase the range of visual sensitivity into the IR and UV range?
64. Should we put fluoride in drinking water?
65. Can a researcher work on a DOD project to develop new strains of bacteria for use in developing defenses against biological warfare?
66. If a person has a serious defect that is hereditary, should he have children?
67. When is it okay to harvest organs for transplant?
68. Should I invest in a foreign company that buys and sells organs for transplant?
69. Is home birth okay?
70. Should I be an organ donor?
71. May the tissue taken from fetuses be used for transplants or research?
72. Can a person get a sex change operation?
73. Can a person involve his kids in a medical research project?
74. Should children be given Ritalin for ADHD?
75. Is electroconvulsive therapy okay?
76. Should a person use an anti-depressant drug?
77. Should a Catholic psychotherapists offer sex therapy to unmarried couples?
78. Should a Catholic psychotherapist offer sex therapy to a homosexual couple?
79. Should a person with same sex attraction seek reorientation therapy?

Welcome to the brave new world!