One of the great and ongoing situations that calls for ethical decision making is the reality that there is almost always a greater need for something than there is a supply to meet the need. 

For our assignment and scenario, the need is the life-and-death situation of the need for transplantable organs and the rather small and transitory supply. Hard decisions need to be made, and there is little time to think things through. These are emergency situations.

Transplantable organs become available on short notice - usually because a donor has died for reasons unrelated to the organ. They need to be removed and transplanted very quickly, because they only remain fresh for a limited period. And there is the whole complicated issue of tissue type matching. There is also an ongoing concern about how long recipients can wait.

Y O U D E C I D E 
Roles

Choices and Consequences
Review the roles for this scenario before proceeding to the activity.

Y O U D E C I D E 
Activity 

Your assignment is to make the decision using utilitarian ethics as this week's classwork and discussions have brought you to that skill and then to prepare it up in the form of a Memorandum for the hospital records. Remember that this record could be reviewed by the Peer Review Committee or the Hospital Trustees at a later date.

This is Utilitarian Week in our course. Employ what you have learned from J. S. Mill and Utilitarianism this week AND one other of our course's ethicists of your choice from week 1.

The Memorandum should be at 2 double-spaced pages, maximum of 3 pages, in a memorandum form ready to become an official item of record.