Selling of Body Organs - Term Paper Example

Selling of Organs Advancements made in the field of medical science is perhaps the most important advancements of all because humans are affected directly by it; however it is a pity that no scientific research has been able to come up with an alternative for human body organs. Even today, as I write this, thousands of patients are in the waiting list for organs to be procured from cadavers and most of them might not even receive the organs they are waiting for. Introduction a. Human organs In most countries of the world organ donation after death is legal however even with this policy under implementation there is a wide gap organ demand and organ supply. In the U.S. alone the number of patients waiting for organs was over 95,000 while only a short percentage received organs and 6,300 of death were caused by organ shortage (Abouna, p34). However, there is yet another option which might stir ethical arguments but the same would be so beneficial to both donors and the receivers and will help to bridge the gap between demand and supply. Theoretically, human beings have certain organs that they can live without i.e. these organs are not absolutely essential for survival and one may survive without its presence as well. For example humans have two kidneys which purify blood and produce urine. Removal of one of the kidneys would still mean that the other kidney is very much functional and continues to purify blood and produce urine and thus can help a person survive. It is therefore possible to live with just one kidney. Similarly, parts of the liver and intestine can also be removed without causing any harm to the donor. Such organ donation from living donors would be beneficial for patients who are in dire need of transplantations and surgeries. b. Sale of body organs Organ donation is a purely voluntary act and if living donors were allowed to give up their organs for a certain price that would put an end to the numerous deaths caused by the dearth of vital organs for surgery. One needs to consider that today, it is legal to donate blood to patients for surgeries and one can even donate eggs or sperm to meet the wants of childless couples and if this is the case then allowing willing donors to donate organs to help save someone’s life that too by selling an organ or an organ part which is not needed must not be considered an offence (Cohen, 47). If one goes through the long waiting list for organs at different hospitals one would see that most of the patients are either waiting for kidney, heart or liver. It is agreeable that heart can only be procured from a deceased donor or a brain-dead person however kidneys and livers can be procured from living humans without causing problems. It is obvious patients cannot live without a kidney or the liver since these are play extremely important part in survival of a human and absence of these for long term would inevitably lead to death. Scientific advancements as of today cannot provide humans with alternatives to organs and hence the extreme shortage can be brought to an end by making more organs available and the easiest and reliable method to do this is to allow and legalize selling of organs by living donors. c. Controversy involved Yes, one might not find the words “selling of organs” much appealing compared to “donation of organs” but I have used the terminologies deliberately because even donor need to be compensated in some way for donation. In fact in Iran where such sale of organs is already legal it was seen that adding a monetary angle to the act of organ donation increased the supply of organs such as kidneys and liver (Major, p67). However there are numerous ethical problems associated with the selling of organs such as putting a value to human organs, alluring poor people to sell organs just for money etc and therefore makes the selling of organs a rather controversial subject. Some people argue that if living organ donors were paid for giving up their organs the poor people in under-developed or developing countries such as Nepal, Bangladesh, Indonesia would be attracted towards the scheme and end up selling their organs not because they want to but because to need to or have to. Hence, the entire since of morality comes to an end here where a noble deed is weighed by paying the donors. It is also true that adding monetary value to the act of organ donation has increased the chances of black-marketing and illegal selling of the organs but it cannot be denied that illegal organ selling is rampant even today when monetary value has not yet been added or legalized. Body a. Sale of organs can save lives There has been a rapid increase in want for organs because more and people either face health issues or accidents. An increasing percentage of people all around the world follow the western lifestyle which is extremely unhealthy such as drinking, smoking and other hazardous activities which leads to organ failure especially failure of vital organs such as kidneys, liver and intestines. Moreover, other health problems or sudden accidents also cause people to lose functioning of some of their organs. In such cases there is an increased want for organs because today, transplantation surgeries have a higher success rate than before. Previously, transplantation surgeries were a risk mostly because of immunological problems that accompanied such surgeries. Patients with a transplanted organ had to be careful post-surgery because often the recipients body did not accept the foreign transplanted tissue leading to post-surgery complications, infections etc. the transplantation surgery itself was a huge risk where patients would often succumb to death in the operation theatre; however, with advancement in medicines and surgical procedures transplantations have become more easier and enjoys a much higher percentage of success rate therefore people today who are in need of organs opt for transplantation without any fear and this is the reason the waiting lists for organs are always on the increase. Taking the case of the United States alone, people with kidney and liver organ failures has increased. In 2010, 591,000 patients were on the waiting list for organs out of which 80,000 were for kidneys alone (Hippen et al, p1054). There is not enough supply of organs to conduct all of these transplants and most of those in the waiting lists often die owing to the problem. In Iran, organ selling is already a legal act. The Iranian government recognized that a large percentage of its citizens suffered from end stage renal failure and the cost of dialysis was huge therefore in 1988 it legalized the living non-related donation of organs such as kidneys. The most important result of this policy was that transplantation surgeries became 3 folds while there was no dearth of organs at all and therefore no persons was ever kept in the waiting lists compared to the huge number of people who wait for organs in the U.S or in Europe (Major,pg68). This was solely possible because the government made organs available to the general people that too from live donors. In Germany, the healthcare system does not allow donation of organs for the fact that by selling an organ, the donor becomes a mere instrument and the ultimate result is the welfare of the recipient and not the donor. However, if a more communitarian approach could be seen here and a monetary value was added to the act of organ donation then both the recipient and the donor would benefit from the entire process (Keller et al, p475). A religious perspective may also be brought into play to lend support to the fact the organ selling should enjoy legal support. In almost all religions of the world the human life holds an infinite value in Nature. Christianity believes that man had been created in “God’s own image”. Man was created to take care of all things around him and even though man has not fulfilled any of his duties he stills holds a special place in nature and therefore each human life is valuable. Some believe that it is absurd to risk one’s own life to save someone else but “the halachic authorities emphasize that one may, and indeed one must, undertake a “reasonable” risk to save the life of another” (Halperin, p42). b. Sale of Body organ is safe The procedures involving organ donation, transplantation etc have always been a matter of concern for most people. Some people refrain from the entire act of donating organs because there is not enough information available about them. People donate blood and less risky body products such as ovum and semen but when it comes to vital organs such as the kidney, the liver or the intestines, automatically a growing concern surrounds the mind of a potential donor. Even corneas of one eye or eye-balls are also donated by some. Many people are unsure whether one solely for the act of donation, should risk one’s life and go under the life just to get a fully functional organ removed for the sake of saving someone else’s life. The whole fear around the success of surgery is frightening to most.However, researchers have obtained a better understanding of the human anatomy, organ functioning, surgery etc. Operational techniques and procedures have also been refines to keep at par with the growing complicacy of health problems as well making the entire procedure of organ surgery much safer than it used to be. People are also concerned about the risks of donating vital organs such as the liver or the kidneys or parts of the intestine and this is solely sue to the dearth of education or knowledge about such things. The liver is an important organ of the human body which serves a number of purposes. It detoxifies the body and helps in metabolism. Important biochemical cycles such as glycogenesis, gycolysis etc involves the hepatocytes. It is therefore obvious that a person cannot function without the liver. Normally livers are procured from cadavers however a live donor can also give up a part of the liver without any danger to the donor’s health. This in fact is because the liver cells have the unique property to multiply on its own and grow therefore even if a part of the liver is removed it would grow back. Significantly, the recipient on the other hand would also receive a functional part of the healthy liver and would obtain a second chance at life again. A normal healthy person has two functional kidneys. The kidneys purify the blood and filter it. It is also involved in the production of urine for excretion purposes. It is possible for a person to live with one kidney. If one of the kidneys fails while the other continues to function properly, the person would not have any health problem whatsoever. In fact studies have shown that kidney donation has no detrimental effect on the body or on the psychology of the donor. Therefore, donors with two absolutely healthy and functional kidneys may give up one of the kidneys since it would pose no harm to the donor himself but would help a person with no functional kidney at all to live his/her live normally again. Some patients suffer from gut damage owing to accidents or severe ulceration and in such aces where a person’s intestines are removed means that the person would be unable to metabolize food because the intestine helps in absorption and metabolism. Donors with good intestines can easily donate a part of their intestine since a normal intestine is very long in length and having a part of the intestine removed would not affect the metabolic ability of a person significantly at all. One needs to understand that all these procedures are really easy to conduct with increased technology and skilled hands. The recovery time for such procedures is also minimal. c. Legal angle to selling of organ With an increasing surge in transplantation surgeries the want for organs has skyrocketed leading to the problems such as black-marketing and organ trafficking. Organ selling is today an evident problem. Most of these organs are procured from live commercial donors Even today, without making selling of organs legal, the act is rampant in many countries in the name of “transplant tourism”. According to the World Health Organization, 10% of the people receiving organ transplantations receive the organs from “organ tourism”. Organ tourism is a name given to the system where a rich recipient from countries such as U.S, Canada, Japan, Europe visit a developing country or underdeveloped country and “buy” an organ from a donor and get it transplanted .In such cases live donors are brought from poor countries such as Nepal, Bhutan etc while recipients of organs from countries such as U.S, Great Britain or Australia move together into a third world country where the surgery is conducted. Most of the living donors are trafficked from one country to another and also paid for engaging in the trade.   Police investigations on a global level have confirmed that in poor countries humans were trafficked live for the sole aim of procuring organs. As a matter fact in Bangladesh, a poor woman offered to sell one of eyes to make a living. In another part of the world, a Spanish woman decided to sell off her organs in order to pay for rent since she did not have any other sources of income to live a life. It is obvious from these instances that even though organ selling is prohibited it exists in almost all parts of the world. Yes, it is a pity that potential donors such a these women often fall prey to the black marketing of organs and do not get adequate compensation at all Organ trafficking is yet another growing problem. With the increasing demand for donated organs the problem of organ trafficking has also increased and poses a new challenge. According to the data available with the WHO, in 2010 there were approximately 107,000 donated organs worldwide— both legal and illegal, and a high percentage of these donated organs consisted of kidneys which are trafficked (Heymann, 2012). Most people who engage in these illegal transactions are the poor or socioeconomically backward people from the poor and developing countries. “The most common source of organs was impoverished people in India, Pakistan, Egypt, and the Philippines, deceased organ donors in Colombia, and executed prisoners in China” ( Danovitch, p1306). Sources say that India is one the major countries involved in organ-trafficking problems. Impoverished people from such countries sell their organs illegally just for the sake of making some money out of them and you must see that all of these donors are nothing but living donors. In almost all cases the donors themselves are underpaid for their organs, for example in countries such as Indonesia and India, foreigners pay about ½ million in local currency for a transplant out of which only $500 goes to donors who sell their body parts voluntarily (Kumar, p180).Such trade occurs even when law does not allow it however it is but obvious that the very absence of a legitimate lawmarker, leads to such illegal trades and activities. In case the law allowed people to sell their organs under the strict eyes of the law, potential and willing donors would be able to do so without involvement of any third person and would be able to obtain the appropriate amount as well. It is also true that adding a monetary value to organs would increase criminal instances where people might be murdered or taken under the knife forcefully in order to procure fresh organs for financial gains. Recently, an illegal organ trafficker gouged out a child’s eyes to procure cornea. Other such instances involve abduction cases and murders to procure and sell organs. This shows the level of criminal aim involved when organs are associated with money. However such criminal acts would not have occurred if the government was more vigilant on the black market and trafficking of organs. Such acts can be controlled if the Government itself is involved and monitors everything vigilantly. It has become important for the Government of each country to play an important role in mitigating the problems associated with organ selling. Once a monetary value is added to organ donation, it automatically becomes a potential candidate for trafficking and hence the government should be more involved in this and legalizing this would help the government keep a track of the organ-trafficking market. It is legal to sell blood and payment for other body material is also legal in the U.S. It is a universal truth the blood, hair, semen and eggs of humans are sold primarily for financial gain. In fact humans are also paid today for acting as a surrogate and bearing a child. From another perspective even prostitution which has been legalized is also usage of the human body solely for money. The government simply backs these causes since they are supposed to be “less harmful” in nature when compared to a liver or kidney surgery, i.e. the chief “differences between donating an egg and donating a kidney are the degree of risk of morbidity and mortality associated with the procurement process; the size of the donors residual reserve” (Friedman,p747). However, the most important thing about this is that the donation of blood, semen, eggs and even the act of surrogacy have their own problems and complication which the Government simply chooses to overlook. Human female egg donation for instance, requires stimulating the ovary with hormones. In many cases over-stimulation might lead to hormonal imbalance, infertility and even ovarian cancer. Again, prostitution which enjoys a legal tag has been made so simply for sexual gratification but the risks involved are huge.HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases are the most important consequences of prostitution. Surrogacy, which is considered a noble cause in the U.S. and where the charge of a womb is almost $30,000, also involves great risks for the surrogate mother including transfusion, urinary inconsistence, immunological problems and even death and without even considering the emotional and psychological effects. Hence, it is obvious that all those acts of “donation” which are considered harmless and hence enjoy the label of being harmless are in fact not so harmless after all. It is the duty of the Government to understand that likewise, organ surgeries have also evolved tremendously and are more risk-free. Better health facilities, improvement in surgical technologies and pharmaceutical advancements have made surgeries risk-free and easier compared to before. From another perspective too, the Government might also consider the financial gain attached with this. If the citizens of a country are allowed to sell their organs voluntarily that would help the people gain some money and make a healthy living. Research shows that poverty is the root cause of many crimes. Some may argue with the fact that alluring poor people to sell their organs for money is a cruel and unethical act however, one should also face the truth that this particular “cruel and unethical” act is already taking place in most countries and the sole way to justify the act and make sure that the voluntary donors are compensated is to make the entire thing legal. Conclusion Human life is valuable and therefore needs to be saved. Vital organs are irreplaceable and no scientific advancement has yet come up with suitable alternative to human organs. However, every year more and more deaths occur because of dearth of available organs for transplantation purposes and thus the option of legalizing organ selling needs to be considered. Yes, it is true that if organs are associated with money there would be an increase in criminal acts as well however one must also face the bitter truth that the trade of organs already exists today and criminal acts surrounding organ trafficking is rampant as well. However the sole way out is involvement of authorities to keep vigil on such transactions. It needs to be understood that adding a monetary value to organs would increase the percentage of donors and would help people solve the problem of organ deficiency. This would not only help donors acquire money but would also help save numerous lives. The need of the hour is to spread awareness about the procedures of organ donation. People must be made aware of the fact that not much risk is involved if one is willing to donate a vital organ to save someone’s life. Potential donors especially the young and the healthy must remember that it is possible to lead a normal life with just one kidney or a part of the liver. Potential donors need to be made fully aware and given all kinds of information involved. Moreover, the act of legalizing the process of organ selling needs to be done in order to mitigate the global problem of organ trafficking. If the Government would involve itself in the market this would automatically put an end to the black-marketing of organs and turn the black money into white money. This would not only be beneficial for donors and recipients but would also help the Government as well. The government needs to chalk out policies and plans to make the act of selling organs a legal act and make the entire process transparent such that loopholes might not allow illegal transaction. Lastly, voluntary donation of organs is nothing illegal and is in fact noble deed. It is not unethical if the donation is done with the consent of the donor and the entire procedure is transparent without involvement of any third illegal party. Moreover if a person gives up a vital organ without which the body would not be harmed then it is not a fault to compensate the loss with money this would in fact help people to overcome the fear of organ donation and would help save so many lives. References Abouna, G.m. "Organ Shortage Crisis: Problems and Possible Solutions." Transplantation Proceedings 40.1 (2008): 34-38. Print. Cohen, Cynthia B. "Public Policy and the Sale of Human Organs." Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 12.1 (2002): 47-64. Print. Danovitchj Et Al. "Organ Trafficking and Transplant Tourism: The Role of Global Professional Ethical Standards-the 2008 Declaration of Istanbul." Transplantation 95.11 (2013): 1306-312. Print. Friedman, Amy. "Payment for Living Organ Donation Should Be Legalised." BMJ 333.7571 (2006): 746-48. NCBI. Web. 2 Apr. 2014. . Halperin, Mordechai. "Organ Transplants from Living Donors – Halachic Aspects." Rambam Maimonides Medical Journal 2.2 (2011): 42. Print. Heymann, Sven. "Dramatic Increase in Worldwide Illegal Organ Trade." World Socialist Website. N.p., 14 July 2012. Web. 28 Mar. 2014. . Keller Et Al. "Should Commercial Organ Donation Be Legalized in Germany? An Ethical Discourse." Transplant Proc 39.2 (2007): 475-77. Print. Kumar, S. "Police Uncover Large Scale Organ Trafficking in Punjab." Bmj 326.7382 (2003): 180b-80. Print Major, Rupert. "Paying Kidney Donors: Time to Follow Iran?" Mcgill J Med 11.1 (2008): 67-69. Print. Read More