Chapter 4: UN Policy on Zombie Ethics

Have you ever seen the movie World War Z with Brad Pitt?  If not, here comes a spoiler alert.

This is an apocalyptic movie in which there is a zombie outbreak.  Brad Pitt’s character discovers that the zombies do not attack those who are ill.  He creates a vaccine from deadly pathogens found at the World Health Organization (WHO) that makes those who receive it appear to be ill to the zombies.  It camouflages humans from the zombies but does not make them ill.  The movie ends shortly after this.

Here is a sequel that I am creating for the sake of this portfolio project.

It is 40 years in the future.  Humans are at peace with the zombies, as much as they can be anyway.  They live in communities and quarantine zones that keep them safe from the zombies. The younger generation is forgetting how horrific World War Z was.  There are some concerns with the current, zombie camouflaging practices.

Historians and conspiracy theorists are raising concerns that digging into the infection disease archives at the WHO is dangerous as it could open the door to germ warfare or an unintentional outbreak of a deadly disease.

Anti-vaxxers, who are too young to have witnessed World War Z, do not want their children to receive the vaccine.

The world’s population is 50/50 human to zombie.  Researchers have discovered that the zombies have perfectly good, harvestable organs.  The presence of the zombies has created a seemingly endless supply of harvestable organs without consequences.  Distributive justice, when it comes to the availability of organs, is fully met.  Harvesting and utilizing zombie organs is not as well accepted as you would think, though.

Advocates of using zombie organs for donation argue that the practice saves countless lives.  Politicians, in general, agree and take the utilitarian view of the topic.  Medical ethicists and religious leaders frequently quote the dead donor rule and deontology in opposition to the practice.

Some scientists are voicing concerns about the risks of xenotransplantation.

World leaders have decided it is time to come together at the UN and formulate a policy on the topic of biomedical human and zombie ethics.  Advisors to the UN have the following tasks:

1. Define the risks of germ warfare? Where are infectious diseases kept?  How are they secured?  What kind of precautions are taken to keep them out of the hands of terrorists in today’s world?  A place to start your research may be looking at smallpox and anthrax.
2. Not vaccinating children with the zombie camouflaging vaccine puts them and all of society at risk.  Argue for children to receive the vaccine.  Discuss herd immunity and how the ethical principles of deontology and utilitarianism would apply.  Use elements of the current conversation on the measles vaccine to formulate the argument.
3. Argue against the use of harvesting organs from zombies.  The base of your argument is going to be the risks of xenotransplantation.
4. Argue for the use of zombie organs.  Describe the Dead Donor Rule, a real policy that currently exists in health care. Why would using zombie organs would not be in violation of this?  Deontology, in a sense, could be used to argue for or against this practice.  Define deontology and use it to argue for and against the use of zombie organs.  Why would using the organs meet the principles of distributive justice?  Utilitarianism?