Analysis of Ethical Dilemma Essay

Britney, age 17, has been referred be trend of problems at school and a shoplifting charge. She admits to smoking several(prenominal)(prenominal) dope either now and then and having a drink or dickens with her friends. She is milled in black with pierced ears, nose, and lip. Her appearance is disheveled and her hygiene poor. She appears to be overly thin. Britneys p bents were divorced when she was 5 years old. She has a companion who is 5 years older. They social function to live with their m other in the uniform town as their father.Britney saw him frequently, although she says he was always occupy with fail and she could never talk to him just ab issue much of anything. Britney states that her mother was also busy but would usually stop and listen. She reports that her mother has a temper and is worried all the time about m oney and work. She also reports that her mom and protoactinium still fight about money and us kids. She feels like she is in the middle and is alwa ys be asked to choose. Britney feels caught in the middle of conflict amid her p arnts. She interprets their being too busy for her as non being cute by them.Britneys rebellion serves to distract her mother and father from their battle and to unite them as they attempt to control her behavior. It also serves to help illuminate the dilemma of whether she should leave home, leaving her mother alone. She distances herself by victimisation drugs and inebriant but can non really leave home and her mother because of her ir liable behavior. Her fellow has the role of doing well in the family, being responsible objet dart the parents are in conflict. Through the use of their roles, the estranged family continues to function, albeit less than satisfactorily.Britney and her mother and companion recently moved to a raw area, and Britney is at a clean school this year. She is currently in 10th grade and has average grades. Her new friends are different from her old friends, but the y let her for what she is. Britney found toleration in a counterculture when she felt rejection at home. With divorced parents, a yonder father, overly stressed mother, and parents arguing over the kids, Britney has poor self-esteem and feels that she is the cause of some of the problems. She finds that using drugs with other kids relieves boredom, fear, and loneliness.She feels accepted and acceptable when she is using with them. The primary(prenominal) ethical concerns presented in the dilemma with references to the morals Britney uses cocaine when with friends. She learned that using helps her fit inbe one of the gang. She described a new, exonerated group of peers who I like to hang out with and party with. She is yet supplied by a male classmate at school who impregnated her while they are high on drugs and sex. In addition, she has had some moderate school-related problems (e. g. , lateness) and a shoplifting charge.She interposeed a guilty plea for shoplifting. But approximately two weeks before her sentencing hearing, Britney inform the judge and her substance abuse counselor that she was large(predicate) and is still on drugs. Hence, the complexity of this ethical dilemma arises. This case taps into the substance abuse counselor many a(prenominal) layers of personal and professional beliefs. However, narrow reading of the case reveals a firm commitment to consider non ignore fetal interests within the framework of respect for the autonomy of the efficient enceinte adolescent.The case presented clearly relate to situations in which the significant smallr is deemed incompetent. Hence, the counselor contends a clear insight into the right arise to take when a medical intervention can benefit two fetus and mother, as in the case of Britney who is a teenager and is attached to or abuses drugs. Application of human service profession theories and techniques In this analysis, I bring some issues and concepts of feminist ethics, pos t-modernism, and critical theory to reflect on an important childs issue-policy approaches to heavy(predicate) teenager who is polysubstance user.Many people, including many law enforcement officials, child protection agents, and legislators, think that teenagers who use drugs during pregnancy should be punished for the harm or risks of harm they bring to their babies. I take apart this penalization approach and argue that the situation of fraught(p) teenager addicts does not satisfy the conditions usually articulated by philosophers to justify penalty. A penalty approach, moreover, may have sexist and racist implications and ultimately operates more to honor a social distinction between insiders and deviants than to protect children. close to of those who ping a punishment approach to policy for significant addicts call for meaningful sermon programmes as an alternative. I interpret this interference approach as a version of a feminist ethic of care. For the most part, theorizing about the ethics of care has remained at the level of ontology and epistemology, with little discussion of how the ethics of care interprets concrete moral issues differently from more traditional approaches to ethics.By conceptualizing a interference approach to meaning(a) teenage addict as justified by an ethics of care, I propose to understand this ethics of care as a moral framework for social policy. Although I agree with a treatment approach to policy for pregnant teenage addicts, from a feminist point of view there are reasons to be suspicious of many aspects of typical drug treatment. Relying on Michel Foucaults notions of disciplinary power and the operation of confessional discourse in therapy, I argue that treatment a lot operates to adjust women to dominant gender, race, and class structures and depoliticizes and individualizes their situations.Thus, I conclude by offering a distinction between two meanings of empowerment in service provision, one that rema ins individualizing, and one that develops social solidarity through ken raising and the possibility of collective action. Punishment Punitive legislation regarding pregnant addicts has been considered in more than thirty states and by the U. S. Congress. Although the testimony of legal and medical experts appears to have succeeded in pr correctting the passage of congressional legislation, at least octad states now include drug exposure in utero in their interpretation of child abuse and neglect.In several states without such(prenominal) laws, prosecutors have used existing drug-trafficking laws to file criminal charges against women who use cocaine or other controlled substances during pregnancy. By July 1992 at least 167 women in twenty-six states had been arrested and charged criminally because of their use of drugs during pregnancy or because of some other prenatal risk. A number of these women have been found guilty and sentenced to as many as ten years in prison. The majo rity of these cases have involved women of color, as yet though white women also use illegal drugs.The controversy that has been turn about this punishment approach to policy for pregnant addicts appears in some of the appeals of these convictions. As of November 1992, twenty-one cases had been challenged or appealed, and all of these were dismissed or worried (Roberts, 1991) As a result of increasing controversy over such punitory policies, some state and local governments have encouraged treatment as a complement or alternative to criminal punishment or child removal. Thus, California has enacted a law that requires drug treatment programs to give priority to pregnant women.The state of Connecticut has mandated that outreach workers seek out addicted mothers and mothers-to-be to encourage them to get treatment. In the fall of 1991, the city of raw(a) York instituted a program that allows addicted women to take their babies home after birth, provided that they enter treatment an d agree to weekly visits from a social worker (Larson1991). This program and many others that emphasize treatment over punishment nevertheless declare a punitive tendency to the degree that they are coercing women to have treatment. around prosecutors and policymakers who have pursued a punishment approach to pregnant addicts would deny that racist and sexist biases inform their practices. They use up instead that they are utilisation their obligations as state agents to protect infants from harm and to hold accountable those responsible for such harms when they occur. Women who take cocaine or heroin while pregnant are want scarcely and knowingly risking the lives or health of future persons and be to pay for such immoral harm.Punishing women who give birth to drug-affected babies serves gloss to others that the state considers this a grave wrong and bequeath thus deter such behavior. As with most punishments, the primary justifications for punitive policies toward pregnant addicts are deterrence and retribution. Neither justification, however, is well grounded. A deterrence theory of punishment relies on an assumption that people engage in some variety show of cost benefit calculation before victorious the actions the policies are aimed at. In some contexts this makes sense.If a city wishes to discourage illegal parking, it raises the fines and threatens to tow, and these policies usually do work to reduce infractions. The idea that a pregnant addict weighs the benefits of taking drugs against the costs of possible punishment, however, is implausible, because it assumes that it is within her power to refrain from taking drugs if she decide that the costs are too high. Many health professionals argue that punitive policies toward pregnant addicts does deter them from seeking prenatal care (Mann, 1991).Women are belike to avoid contact with healthcare providers if they believe that their drug use will be reported to state authorities who will punis h them. Because drug-using pregnant womens fetuses and babies are often at particularly high risk, they need prenatal attention even more than most. Experts claim that the harmful effects of drug use on infants can be offset, at least in part, by good prenatal care, when health professionals are conscious(predicate) of a womans drug use in a supportive nonpunitive atmosphere (Paltrow, 1990)I think that retribution is most often implicitly or explicitly the operative justification for punitive approaches to pregnant addicts. These women ought to be punished and threatened with punishment because their wrongful actions deserve sanction. such a retributive justification for a punitive approach to pregnant addicts must assume that these women are responsible both for their drug use and for their pregnancies if freedom is a condition for assigning responsibility, however, these are problematic assumptions.Most states where punitive policies toward pregnant addicts have been pursued do not occupy people for drug use alone. Especially where this is so, women are essentially being punished for carrying a pregnancy to term. Such punishment must hypothesize that women are responsible for being pregnant, but there are several social conditions that limit womens filling to be or not be pregnant. Ours is still a society where women often are not really free in their sexual relations with men.Access to contraception, moreover, is not easy for many women, especially poor or young women. And, of course, even when they have it, the contraception sometimes does not work. With rapidly decreasing rag to abortion for all women in the United States, but especially for young or poor women, finally, fewer and fewer women have a choice about whether to carry a pregnancy to term (Lewin, 1992). Some prosecutors and policies claim to use a punishment approach primarily as bureau of encouraging or forcing women into drug treatment.In line with the above arguments, one might say th at a pregnant addict is morally blameful for harming her child only if she does not seek help in dealings with her drug use. In recent years some small stairs have been taken to increase the availability of drug treatment for pregnant women, and to design programs specifically for their needs for the most part, however, access to more than pro forma drug treatment is limited. Most programs either do not accept pregnant women or have waiting lists that extend long beyond their due dates.Most private health insurance programs offer only partial reimbursement for treatment, and in many states Medicaid will reimburse only a portion of the cost of drug treatment. Most treatment programs are designed with mens lives in mind, and very few have childcare options. Mandatory reporting laws or other procedures that force women into treatment, moreover, create an opposition and policing relation between healthcare providers and the women they are supposed to serve, thereby precluding the depone relationship most providers believe is necessary for effective drug therapy( Chavkin, 1991).