Child Donors Should Not Be Allowed Essay

1106 Words3 Pages

Living Child Donors: Why They Should Not Be Allowed Throughout the world, there are thousands of children in need of organs. This causes a problem when children are hard to find matches for and [awkward phrasing or wording. revise.] time for them is running out. It has become increasingly common for parents to turn to sibling donors to help out their brothers and sisters. This creates an issue however, when parents are the ones giving consent for their children to become donors. On one hand they want to save their sick child but on the other they have to take body parts from another child in the form of blood, platelets, or bone marrow. This issue sprouts into multiple discrepancies since children should not be donors: the ability of children to give consent, the after affects on child donors, and if parents can have unbiased control of their child donating. Many people have tried to use the excuse that children feel good when they help others, especially when they are saving lives. However, this is not always the case with child donors. According to Dr. Lainie Ross, “[some children] feel lower self-esteem, a sense of neglect, and lack of appreciation after the donation as the attention refocuses on the recipient. Psychological risks may be greater in younger …show more content…

The National Kidney Foundation released that “Acceptable organ donors can range in age from newborns to 65 years or more” (National Kidney Foundation). This can be interpreted as children still alive donating organs to other children but that is simply untrue. Parents who are considering their baby as a living donor might see this and be led to believe that their baby can be a living soft-tissue donor and have a false belief on how child donations are. Babies can be donors but only after they have passed away and the parents have given consent for their child's body to be

Open Document