Topic: Should donors or their families be compensated for organ donation? How should people be selected to receive donor organs?
Major Points: Organ donation myths, Recipient Selection, Legislation and Policy, Current Trend, Let’s Pay Organ Donors.
Thesis: While driving on the highway recently, I saw a bumper sticker which read: “Please Don't Take Your Organs to Heaven, Heaven Knows That We Need Them Here” Approximately 7,000 Americans die annually while awaiting an organ transplant. In other countries of the world thousands more whose lives could be extended or transformed through transplants lost their lives because of unavailable organs. The waiting list is ever growing and the list of those willing to donate seems to be shrinking. This can be attributed to lack of motivation and knowledge among the prospective donors. According to a research done by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Kidney transplant, only one in ten people in need of a new kidney, manages to get one. The gap between supply and demand for organs has created a black market for body parts which has led to abuse of human life especially in third world countries. This high demand has led people to scour the globe to procure the organs they or their loved ones need and unscrupulous intermediaries offer help. There is a need to compensate those who are willing donate if this wide gap has to be bridged.
Body Point 1: Organ donation myths Th...
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... would in the contrary; put it into the hands of black marker dealers just the way outlawing drugs didn’t make them go away but rather put all the power into the hands of drug cartels, and we all know how well that’s turned out. By legalizing organ sales, we can guarantee that the transaction is voluntary, sanitary, and safe. No such promises can be made if we kept it outlawed. I have always wondered why we’re allowed to receive compensation for donating our hair, blood, sperm and eggs. Why should kidneys or bone marrow or other organs fall into a special class that prohibits market exchanges yet they are equally body parts? Banning compensation for these organs is a sure death sentence for thousands of Americans who are in desperate need of these organs and a waste of money for the government in paying for the upkeep of these patients as they undergo the long wait.
Imagine being a hospitalized patient waiting for an organ donation to save your life, knowing that the amount of people in need of organs outweigh the amount of donors. This is a sad reality for many people across the United States due to the lack of available organs. The debate over monetary payment to donors to increase available organs has been an ongoing fight for over 30 years. In 1984 an act was passed to put tight restrictions on organ sales through Task Force on Organ Procurement and Transplantation, which resulted in a depleted amount of available organs. This act that changed the organ sales industry was called the National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA). NOTA was originally created to stop exploitative and illegal sales between donors and patients, but turned into a method of decreasing organ availability for patients around the world. I explored two articles over the complications of organ sale legality to discover if the monetary payment of organs should be outlawed. The first article focuses on the different market factors that affect the public opinion and the second explores the financial incentive declined caused by organ donations.
In “Death’s Waiting List”, Sally Satel presents a strong and compelling argument for the implementation of changes to the organ donation system. The author addresses a shortage of organ donations due to the current donation system in the United States, which puts stipulations on the conditions surrounding the donation. She provides ideas to positively affect the system and increase organ donations.
...ne article, The Troubling Shortage Of Organ Donors In The U.S., makes it well known that there is a huge shortage of organ donors throughout the united states. It emphasizes that the need for kidneys is bigger than the need for other organs. The number of people needed a kidney is triple the amount of the people that are receiving the kidneys. The article states, “Now the United Network for Organ Sharing is considering changing the rules for kidneys to be more like hearts, matching younger donors with younger recipients and also giving priority to the healthier patients” (Siegel). This view point will help defend my argument on seeing that we need to find a way to solve organ shortages throughout the united states. I argue that everyone should be a priority patient, and they should find a way to solve organ shortages, that way everyone would be a priority patient.
In the year 2012 in the United States of America alone, 95,000 men, women, and children were on the waiting list for a transplanted kidney. This issue is discussed in the articles: “Cash for Kidneys: The Case for a Market for Organs” and “When Altruism Isn’t Moral”. The authors of “Cash for Kidneys: The Case for a Market for Organs” Gary S. Becker, a professor of economics at the University of California, and Julio J. Elias, a professor at the Universidad del CEMA in Argentina, don’t agree fully with the author of “When Altruism isn’t Moral” Sally Satel, a psychiatrist, who received a transplanted kidney herself. She explains in her article how selling one’s bodily organs for a profit is unethical (Axelrod and Cooper 225). They may not agree on how to solve the transplantable organ deficit, but both agree that it is a major issue. The transplantable organ deficit is a problem at an all-time high and providing money as a form of compensation, though it may be unethical, may be
Wolfe, R., Merion, R., Roys, E., & Port, F. (2009). Trends in Organ Donation and Transplantation in the United States, 1998-2007. American Journal of Transplantation , 9, 869-878.
A transplanted kidney can last a person their whole lifetime yet in the greatest country of the world, the government bans the selling of organs. This leads to thousands of citizens desperate to find a cure for themselves or a loved one. A solution to reduce our supply and demand gap would be to pay our donors. By paying our donors, this would increase the supply of kidneys tremendously. People living in extreme poverty are willing to put so much on the line for money. People in third world countries are accepting as little as $1,000 for a kidney just so they can supply their family with some food and necessities. This black market of organ trading needs to be stopped but we should not ask a patient to accept death easily. If organ sales did become legalized it would need to be highly regulated. Some people in less fortunate countries are only left to sell their organs on the black market. Why not build a regulated system that compensates people fairly and provides them with safety? As unpleasant as it seems to commodify organs, the current situation is simply too tragic not to change something. If coordinated properly, it could simultaneously satisfy the needs of wealthy countries with long waiting lists and poorer countries with overwhelming poverty. In the 1990s, after years of war and economic slumps, the country, Iran decided to compensate donors by paying them for
“Many people in our village have sold their kidneys if you are hungry, what do you do? You do whatever it takes to fulfill your hunger and that’s what I did.” Many people just like this young individual have volunteered to sell their organs for quick cash. To provide for their family, to send their children off to college, or to even put food on the table. For whatever the reason may be, there are still causes and the effects of selling one’s organ through the black market that one needs to be made aware of, for example, by selling one’s organ through the black market doesn’t ensure that one will be provided with the best medical care and attention that one will need prior to surgery,
One of the biggest pitfalls within our medical field in today’s world has to be the lack of donations seen when it comes to organ transplants. On average, 17 people die each die each day in the failure to find a organ match and an astonishing 115 people are added to that very same list while this tragedy is occurring (Kishore 362). A topic of debate that has arisen from this senseless dying is whether or not to allow the sale of organs, similar to what is seen in Iran where they allow a market. However, opponents of this proposed solution argue that the idea would be “ineffective, perhaps counterproductive” and that "we can make the system of donation effective without such ethical risks” (Childress**). Proponents argue that if we as humans
In the 21st century, people face many diseases and problems that they cannot simply solve even with the technological developments that they have today. One of the most common transplantations in the United States is the kidney transplant. This is mainly because of the high demands of organs for renal disease patients with such short supplies. Since 2008, the worldwide illegal organ sales have increased dramatically. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there were approximately 107,000 donated organs worldwide in 2010; 10% of the number was from the black market. Many people argue that the organ sales should be legalized and regulated by government properly. For example, the article “Organ Sales Will Save Lives” by Joanna MacKay
There are some who dwell in the hope that scientific advances will allow us to develop organs in the laboratory. But that day isn’t here. That day might not be here in the near future. Meanwhile, there are thousands of patients waiting to be rescued, to be saved. The death rate of these patients will continue to mass. According to the US Department of Health and Human Services Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, there are about 123,000 people on transplant waiting lists in the US with about 300,000 people in China (Standford.edu). It is practically inhumane to put our hope into future technology while there are people around the world dying. Something has to be done. There has to be a change. The best way to stop this and increase the supply of organs available is to create a system in which the donors are provided some type of payment. In a live debate by NPR over the placement of this system, “those who favored buying and selling organs went from 44 percent to 60 percent. But those opposed inched up only 4 points, from 27 to 31 percent” (npr.com). Therefore, being able to save thousands of lives through the legalization of organ marketing overshadows the risks that come with it. And because of this, one person probably died waiting for an organ while this essay was being
One of the most important and prevalent issues in healthcare discussed nowadays is the concern of the organ donation shortage. As the topic of organ donation shortages continues to be a growing problem, the government and many hospitals are also increasingly trying to find ways to improve the number of organ donations. In the United States alone, at least 6000 patients die each year while on waiting lists for new organs (Petersen & Lippert-Rasmussen, 2011). Although thousands of transplant candidates die from end-stage diseases of vital organs while waiting for a suitable organ, only a fraction of eligible organ donors actually donate. Hence, the stark discrepancy in transplantable organ supply and demand is one of the reasons that exacerbate this organ donation shortage (Parker, Winslade, & Paine, 2002). In the past, many people sought the supply of transplantable organs from cadaver donors. However, when many ethical issues arose about how to determine whether someone is truly dead by either cardiopulmonary or neurological conditions (Tong, 2007), many healthcare professionals and transplant candidates switched their focus on obtaining transplantable organs from living donors instead. As a result, in 2001, the number of living donors surpassed the number of cadaver donors for the first time (Tong, 2007).
Stevens, S. (2007, July 30). Doctors, patients debate ways to increase organ donation. Retrieved April 24, 2011, from Daily Herald: http://www.donatelifeillinois.org/donatelife/news/DailyHerald07-30-07.pdf
In this paper I will be using the normative theory of utilitarianism as the best defensible approach to increase organ donations. Utilitarianism is a theory that seeks to increase the greatest good for the greatest amount of people (Pense2007, 61). The utilitarian theory is the best approach because it maximizes adult organ donations (which are the greater good) so that the number of lives saved would increase along with the quality of life, and also saves money and time.
People make their decisions to commit to organ donation based off of religious perspectives, the negatives and positives to donating, and the benefits to donating.
In a person’s life there comes to a point when a challenging decision must be made. Even the toughest decision could involve risking one’s life to make someone else’s better. An individual at the age of sixteen comes to the decision when deciding whether he or she should donate his or her organs. According to Gary S. Becker and Julio J. Elias, “ In 2012, 95,000 American men, women and children were on the waiting list for new kidneys, the most commonly transplanted organ” (222). Some are on this waiting list for approximately 2.9 years (222). There is a significant amount of people who die each day to the unavailability of organs. Organ compensation reduces long wait times and several deaths. Almost fifty patients on the waiting list can enjoy a sick-free life from a donor patient. If one is receiving compensation to help others, there would be a ready supply of these organs to cure one’s needs. The need of organs is a huge deal in easing the suffering of each individual's sickness.