Chapter 8:
Organ Transplants and Scarce Medical Resources
Multiple Choice Questions
1) What reason or reasons lead to Ken Duke’s heart transplant sparking a controversy?
a) Ken Duke was a prisoner at the time of the transplant.
b) The state of California ended up paying the estimated $1 million cost of the transplant.
c) If the transplant had not been done, Ken Duke’s estate could have sued the state.
d) all of these choices
2) Which policy or organ procurement is based on the view that the donor has tacitly consented
to donate an organ?
a) presumed consent
b) altruistic donation
c) organ markets
d) mandated choice
3) A microallocation decision
a) directly impacts classes of persons.
b) directly impacts individuals.
c) indirectly affects populations in different ways.
d) is concerned with low-value goods.
4) Which principle allows the unequal allocation of resources provided that it benefits the least
advantaged members of society?
a) The macroallocation principle
b) The principle of double effect
c) The difference principle
d) The equity principle
5) Appel argued that death row inmates should be allowed to be candidates for kidney
transplants because of which of the following?
a) If a death row inmate were wrongly convicted, denying him a transplant would result in
the irreversible suffering of an innocent person.
b) It would be wrong for a medical decision to lower a death row inmate’s quality of life
while he is waiting for execution.
c) A death row inmate’s life expectancy should not be considered relevant to a transplant
decision.
d) all of these choices
6) Phadke and Anandh argue for the view that the medical profession should reject commercial
organ procurement on what grounds?
a) Commercial organ procurement exploits the poor.
b) Commercial organ procurement commercializes the body.
c) Commercial organ procurement exploits the poor, commercializes the body, and
undercuts human dignity.
d) Commercial organ procurement exploits the poor and undercuts human dignity.
7) Decisions that control the supply itself—for example, what proportion of the federal budget
will be spent on medical care—are generally referred to by what term?
a) macroallocation
b) microallocation
c) Medicaid
d) Dialysis
8) Annas argued that a charity approach to organ procurement was demeaning based on what
rationale?
a) A charity approach to organ procurement is much worse than the market approach and
thus, unlike the latter, is intolerable.
b) A charity approach to organ procurement puts a very low value on both individual rights
and equality and fairness.
c) Requiring the less financially fortunate to make public appeals for funding amounts to
rationing by financial ability and thus to believing that a price can be placed on human
life.
d) Requiring the less financially fortunate to make public appeals for funding makes such
persons beholden to those who fund their medical procedures.
9) Which of the following moral theories holds that when allocating limited supplies of goods,
such as donor organs, considerations such as talent, intelligence, age, and social worth are
morally irrelevant?
a) Utilitarian
b) Kantian
c) Paternalism
d) Rawlsian
10) Taking such factors as education, age, and record of accomplishment when allocating
society’s limited goods is generally referred to as what type of argument?
a) Best Person
b) Categorical Imperative
c) Social Calculus
d) Social Worth
11) According to Emanuel and Wertheimer, when a vaccine cannot be provided for everyone,
which group should be given the vaccine first?
a) producers, distributors and administrator of the vaccine
b) mothers and young children
c) the President, his family and members of Congress
d) none of the above
12) The view that each person should have the opportunity to live through each stage of life is
termed a
a) Pandemic Principle
b) Save Most Lives Principle
c) Fairness Principle
d) Life Cycle Principle
13) The present system of organ procurement by voluntary donation in the United States is often
referred to by which of the following terms?
a) presumed consent
b) altruistic donation
c) living donors
d) informed consent
14) Which allocation principle would give priority to 6 month olds over 1 year olds when
allocating vaccines during an epidemic?
a) Life Cycle Principle
b) Pandemic Principle
c) Save Most Lives Principle
d) Fairness Principle
15) The Life Cycle Principle is inherently
a) egalitarian.
b) utilitarian.
c) Kantian.
d) unjust.
16) According to Emanuel and Wertheimer rationing is
a) unjust
b) egalitarian
c) inescapable
d) never justified.
True/False Questions
1) It is currently illegal in the U.S. to buy and sell solid human organs.
2) Personal wealth can provide an advantage in the current system of organ allocation in the
U.S.
3) The fact that transplant surgery is expensive is the only major problem that transplant surgery
faces.
4) In a “required response” state people have to declare if they wish to become organ donors
when they renew their driver’s licenses.
5) Allowing organ sales would seem to be required by respect for bodily autonomy.
6) In an organ market the rich would necessarily exploit the poor.
7) Policies of presumed consent frequently solve the organ shortage in the countries in which
they are enacted.
8) Kidneys are the only organs transplanted from living donors.
9) Appel argues that the life expectancy of a death row inmate should be considered relevant to
a transplant decision and, thus, death row inmates should not be allowed to be candidates for
kidney transplants.
10) Cohen and Benjamin believe that it is feasible to require physicians to examine the moral
character of all of their patients when deciding who is most eligible to receive a transplant
organ.
11) Radcliffe-Richards argues that the disgust that we may feel at the thought of selling kidneys
is sufficient reason for us to deny people treatments they need.
12) Phadke and Anandh believe that the selling of organs for transplant should remain illegal.
13) Emanuel and Wertheimer argue that, in a situation where there is only a limited amount of
vaccine to prevent a loss of life, priority status for the vaccine should be given to those
working to on producing and distributing the vaccine.
14) Annas believes that, barring cases of immediate need, organs should be allocated on a first-
come, first-serve basis.
15) The market approach to organ allocation puts a high value on rights, according to Annas.