Medicine has made great strides in the past few centuries. One such advancement is the transplantation of organs and tissues. Those who receive transplants are often times patients with fatal diseases, and these transplants give them a second chance at life. Unfortunately, the number of people needing a transplant is growing more rapidly than available organs; statistics say that in the United States, seventeen people die daily while hoping for an organ transplant (Friedman & Friedman, 2006). Laws restrict transplantable organs to those organs that are donated; the donor must be of sound mind and be a minimum of eighteen years of age. Since there is a growing need for organs, questions have been raised about whether monetary compensation would persuade more people to become donors.
No one will argue that there is not an organ shortage. Getting to the top of the transplant list can often take years, and in the meantime the patient endures expensive and time-consuming treatments that only slow down organ failure. For example, dialysis is a common treatment for those with end-stage renal disease. Treatments are several days a week for several hours at a time. Medical expenses in the meantime build up, and often the patient is not able to work or at least work as they did before the onset of the disease. This will result in a loss of the patient’s income and ability to pay for treatment. If a person with end-stage renal disease were to have access to a kidney sooner, that could eliminate expenses for the patient, and society could benefit from them going back to work sooner. Also, the money the patient saves on expensive treatments could go to paying a “donor” for their organ (Friedman & Friedman, 2006).
Proponents of buying and sel...
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...umber of available organs, I do not believe the end justifies the means. I believe this would exploit the poor. Poverty makes one go to extraordinary measures to provide for their family and themselves, even at the risk of imprisonment, health deterioration, or death. I believe people would sell their “unnecessary” organs such as a lung or kidney, for a good market price, only to see that money evaporate quickly because this is not a consistent mode of income. Also, instead of the system now in place, based upon need, a legalized market would be about who could pay. This would also ultimately exploit the poor since they cannot pay as much as a rich person. The current system, though flawed, is the safest and most fair way to ensure that willing donors and patients who need organs both receive ultimately what they want or need without compromising any party involved.
Joanna MacKay says in her essay, Organ Sales Will Save Lives, that “Lives should not be wasted; they should be saved.” Many people probably never think about donating organs, other than filling out the paper work for their drivers’ license. A reasonable amount of people check ‘yes’ to donate what’s left of their bodies so others may benefit from it or even be able to save a life. On the other hand, what about selling an organ instead of donating one? In MacKay’s essay, she goes more in depth about selling organs. Honestly, I did not really have an opinion on organ sales, I just knew little about it. Nonetheless, after I studied her essay, I feel like I absolutely agreed with her. She argues that the sale of human organs should be authorized. Some crucial features in an argument consist of a clear and arguable position, necessary background information, and convincing evidence.
Yearly, thousands die from not receiving the organs needed to help save their lives; Anthony Gregory raises the question to why organ sales are deemed illegal in his piece “Why legalizing organ sales would help to save lives, end violence”, which was published in The Atlantic in November of 2011. Anthony Gregory has written hundreds of articles for magazines and newspapers, amongst the hundreds of articles is his piece on the selling of organs. Gregory states “Donors of blood, semen, and eggs, and volunteers for medical trials, are often compensated. Why not apply the same principle to organs? (p 451, para 2)”. The preceding quote allows and proposes readers to ponder on the thought of there being an organ
In her article, Satel criticizes the current methods governing organ sharing in the United States, and suggests that the government should encourage organ donation, whether it was by providing financial incentives or other compensatory means to the public. Furthermore, the author briefly suggests that the European “presumed consent” system for organ donation might remedy this shortage of organs if implicated in the States.
...nts will die before a suitable organ becomes available. Numerous others will experience declining health, reduced quality of life, job loss, lower incomes, and depression while waiting, sometimes years, for the needed organs. And still other patients will never be placed on official waiting lists under the existing shortage conditions, because physical or behavioral traits make them relatively poor candidates for transplantation. Were it not for the shortage, however, many of these patients would be considered acceptable candidates for transplantation. The ban of organ trade is a failed policy costing thousands of lives each year in addition to unnecessary suffering and financial loss. Overall, there are more advantages than disadvantages to legalizing the sale of organs. The lives that would be saved by legalizing the sale of organs outweighs any of the negatives.
In 1954, the first organ transplant was conducted successfully in the United States. (Clemmons, 2009) Nowadays, the technology of organ transplant has greatly advanced and operations are carried out every day around the world. According to current system, organ sales are strictly prohibited in the United States. (Clemmons, 2009) However, the donor waiting list in the United States has doubled in the last decade and the average waiting time for a kidney is also increasing. (Clemmons, 2009) In the year 2007, over 70,000 patients were on the waiting list for a kidney and nearly 4500 of them died during the waiting period. In contrast to the increasing demand for kidney, organ donation has been in a decrease. (Wolfe, Merion, Roys, & Port, 2009) Even the government puts in great effot to increase donation incentives, the gap between supply and demand of organs still widens. In addition, the technology of therapeutic cloning is still not mature and many obstacles are met by scientists. (Clemmons, 2009) Hence, it is clear that a government regulated kidney market with clear legislation and quality control is the best solution to solve the kidney shortage problem since it improves the lives of both vendors and patients.
It’s important to realize that many Americans believe organ donation should simply be just that, a donation to someone in need. However, with the working class making up roughly 60% of society it’s extremely unlikely that a citizen could financially support themselves during and after aiding someone in a lifesaving organ transplant. The alarming consequence, says bioethicist Sigrid Fry-Revere, is that people waiting for kidneys account for 84 percent of the waiting list. To put it another way Tabarrok explains, “In the U.S. alone 83,000 people wait on the official kidney-transplant list. But just 16,500 people received a kidney transplant in 2008, while almost 5,000 died waiting for one” (607). Those numbers are astronomical. When the current “opt-in” policy is failing to solve the organ shortage, there is no reason compensation should be frowned upon. By shifting society’s current definition regarding the morality of organ donation, society will no longer see compensation for organs as distasteful. Citizens will not have to live in fear of their friends and family dying awaiting an organ transplant procedure. A policy implementing compensation would result in the ability for individuals to approach the issue with the mindset that they are helping others and themselves. The government currently regulates a variety of programs that are meant to keep equality and fairness across the
Every year, the need for new organs in organ transplants becomes more apparent. “I recognized fairly early that the biggest problem facing me as a surgeon was the shortage of organs. I’ve devoted my professional life to solving that problem,” Vacanti said (Arnst and Carey 60). Approximately eight million people in the United States undergo surgery annually to correct organ failure (Arnst and Carey 61). While these patients wait for surgery and others wait on the transplant list, their medical expenses reach up to $400 billion. These expenses count for almost one-half of American heath-care bills. Nearly four...
Throughout history physicians have faced numerous ethical dilemmas and as medical knowledge and technology have increased so has the number of these dilemmas. Organ transplants are a subject that many individuals do not think about until they or a family member face the possibility of requiring one. Within clinical ethics the subject of organ transplants and the extent to which an individual should go to obtain one remains highly contentious. Should individuals be allowed to advertise or pay for organs? Society today allows those who can afford to pay for services the ability to obtain whatever they need or want while those who cannot afford to pay do without. By allowing individuals to shop for organs the medical profession’s ethical belief in equal medical care for every individual regardless of their ability to pay for the service is severely violated (Caplan, 2004).
But it exists today: an illegal market in human organs, black markets. Selling a body part seems unethical, but a closer look, reveals no bright line in the laws of most countries. It is legal for men to sell their sperm, for women to sell their limited number of reproductive eggs or use their wombs as surrogate mothers, people who selling their hairs and blood. And it is not understandable and clear why the same standards should not be applied to organs donation such as kidney, part of liver. These organs donation are not riskier than other plain medical surgeries or operations. Research and experience in medicine shows that with one kidney and part of the liver which grow back fast person can live normal healthy life. Many people who might be persuaded that organ donation is safe have another problem: the burden of organ donation fall on those who are already financially disadvantage. Suffering of the poor people would be increased by a market for a human organ is not a trivial one. American law attempts to protect poor people by prohibiting for selling organs. The problem is these attempts hurt poor, donors, human lives. The results of not enough organ donors in United States, combined with the legal sale of organs, there is a black market also. Every year a thousands of people from wealthy countries, including US, travel to poorer, less legally serious countries to buy kidneys
Today, 120,000 people are waiting for organ transplants in the United States. On average eighteen of these people die every day because they did not get the organ donation because of an absence of available organs for transplant. There is a large and increasing shortage of organs for transplant patients not only in America but in the whole world. Currently, the only organs that a transplant patient can legally receive are from cadavers or living relatives. This leaves patients with a very small chance of getting the help they need if they do not have a living relative with a compatible organ. If there were a free market for organs, it is believed by many experts that up to half of these patients would be able to get the transplants they need, at a lower medical cost (Adams, Barnett, Kaserman). The heightened medical costs, anguish of waiting, and thousands of needlessly lost lives could all be remedied by a free market for human organs.
It is clear that a large demand for organs exists. People in need of organ donations are transferred to an orderly list. Ordinarily, U.S. institutions have an unprofitable system which provides organs through a list of individuals with the highest needs; however, these organs may never come. A list is
For starters I would like to high light that I do not agree with organ trade, I absolutely detest it. To save a life by giving an organ is a good thing but selling it develops problems. Selling organs is very immoral because it allows our vital organs to be sold like a piece of crap. I do not see how legalization is okay, because no one should want to have their body part(s) sold on the market as though they are an item. However, I do support giving organs for great causes and maybe, giving it to science. Those are fairly acceptable things and they can become beneficial to science and people in need. In recent studies I found that “People who sell their kidneys receive a small amount for their donation, after all the majority goes to whomever is the broker i...
Organ donation is important because it affects more than just the person recieving the organ. Organ donation affects the family of who gave the organ, the recipiant, and the recipients family. The recipiants are put on a list right when they are told they need a new organ. In 2012 alone, there were 124,681 people that put on a waitlist for an organ. (The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2013). When a person is in need of a new organ, that means they are very ill, so they are not able to live a normal life like they might have onve been able to, making a new level of stress to be created on the family. Dimitri Linde explains what people on the transplant list experiance, “ Transplant candidates typically undergo dialysis sessions three times a week, lastfding four to five hours each. The session weaken patients to the degree that 71% discontinue work after starting treatment. Treatments despirit too: Those on dialysis experience clinical depression at a rate four times the national average,” ( I Gave Away a Kidney; Would you sell one?). Waiting lists create little hope for those on them, but, for a family of a descesed, they can give hope.
In conclusion, although there are some valid reasons to support the creation of an organ market based on the principles of beneficence and autonomy, there are also many overriding reasons against the market. Allowing the existence of organ markets would theoretically increase the number of organ transplants by living donors, but the negative results that these organ markets will have on society are too grave. Thus, the usage of justice and nonmaleficence as guiding ethical principles precisely restricts the creation of the organ market as an ethical system.
First of all, selling organs shouldn’t be legal for two main reasons, which are saving lives and stop people from selling organs illegally in the black market. The world should understand that in many cases if someone didn’t get the organ they need they will suffer and have to die in some cases. This doesn’t means that the donors will have to give up their lives but, they can and will live healthy. For example if someone is dyeing and in need of a kidney and there is no chance for that person to live unless he gets one. Legalizing selling organs will saves this person’s life because he would easily buy an organ and complete the rest of his life without and problems. But in the case of that kidney that is in need, other people could sell theirs without having and problems that would affect them. Humans have two kidneys and one kidney that wills saves other person live is going to kill this person or even hurts.