My Sister's Keeper medical ethics assignment guide

The mark allocation tells you how to spend your effort: twelve points for defining the six terms, twelve for applying them to the attorneys, six for the closing reflection. Parts A and B are therefore equal in weight even though A looks like the easier task, and the trap is writing six textbook definitions and then a thin paragraph of application. Write the definitions with part B already in mind, so each one is framed in a way that can be tested against a courtroom. Autonomy as self-determination in medical decisions; veracity as truth-telling and disclosure; fidelity as keeping commitments and loyalty to the person you serve; beneficence as acting for another's benefit; non-maleficence as the duty not to inflict harm; justice as fair distribution of benefit, burden and access. Part A also says research and define, so each definition should carry a citation rather than arriving from memory.

Part B is the analytical half and its phrasing matters — it asks about the legal arguments and behaviours exhibited by the prosecuting and defence attorneys, not about the family's ethics. That means you are assessing advocates operating under professional duties that do not map neatly onto medical ethics. An attorney's fidelity runs to the client, which is a narrower and more binding obligation than a clinician's; veracity in litigation means not misleading the tribunal rather than full disclosure to the other side; and an attorney may properly advance an argument whose consequences are not beneficent for anyone in the room. Working through each of the six against the attorneys' conduct is what the assignment is asking for, and the interesting entries are the ones where a legal duty and an ethical principle actually pull apart. Say so explicitly when it happens, because noticing the divergence is the analysis; smoothing it over turns twelve points into a summary.

The six-point closing question names three dimensions — moral, practical, emotional — so give each of them a share rather than writing generally about how difficult the situation is. Morally, the question is whether a person may be used as a means to another's benefit, and whether a child who cannot consent can be enrolled in that. Practically, it is about consent and assent in minors, who decides, what the medical burden actually amounts to across repeated procedures, and how a decision would be revisited as the child grows. Emotionally, it is about a family whose members' interests genuinely conflict and whose relationships carry the decision either way. Keep it to two or three paragraphs as instructed, and take a position rather than surveying the difficulty, since the marks are for reasoning and not for even-handedness.