Never Let Me Go Ethical Analysis

Scientific experiments are performed as a way for humans to understand more about the world in which they live and themselves. However, the thirst for such knowledge has often resulted in ignoring the ethical implications of such experiments and thus has resulted in some of the worst human rights violations. In 1973 the Senate Subcommittee on Health held a series of hearings in an attempt to tackle the conundrum of risk versus reward in medicine and human experimentation. Much knowledge has been reaped from these experiments that have resulted in medicine being able to improve the quality and lifespan of many people’s lives. However, a lot of this knowledge has been gained through the sacrifices of others and sometimes these sacrifices were not made willingly. Thirty years later, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go attempts to tackle the same conundrum by posing a question to readers that all experimenters
Kathy and her friends aren’t told that they’re clones with the sole purpose of donating vital organs, but they do seem to be aware that they are clones. While informed consent generally applies only to experiments, the importance of informing people of their circumstances especially as it applies to their health is an important one. Miss Lucy seems to understand this as she breaks the rules, resulting in her removal from the school, and tells her students the truth. The Senate hearings also brought up the importance of informed consent, particularly with the disturbing Tuskegee Syphilis Study in which medical treatment was deliberately withheld and participants were purposefully misled. Human experimentation can be a wealthy source of knowledge that can solve some of the problems plaguing modern medical treatment, but it must be done in the most ethically sound manner