Ethics of the Sale of Body Parts - Essay Example

The Anatomical Gift Act, drafted in 1968 was the initial effort made in an attempt to give a tissue and organ donation policy (Talbot, 2012). It created a uniform legal procedure for people who wished to donate organs to medical institutions. In this act that is operational in up to fifty states, it states that a person of sound mind and 18 years of age can donate part or all of his body. The donor may put his wish to donate a body part in a will that is operational only upon his death. This act forbade the sale of body parts, but the recipient of the donated body part is to pay for the transportation of the donated organ or body part.

Organs and tissues can only be received by surgeons, hospitals, physicians and educational institutions in medical or dental research. There is also a National Organ Transplant Act of 1984 that provides funds for the establishment of organ procurement organization. The act also banned the sale of organs between states and established a task force to enforce policy issues regarding organ transplantation. The following body parts can be donated in the United States. They include the heart, kidney, lungs, skin, eyes and the liver.

These parts of the body get harvested as soon as one passes on and become implanted onto someone else. Despite the medical and legal mechanisms that encourage organ donation, demand exceeds supply. It gets estimated that there are daily reports of deaths of up to 8 people as a result of waiting for a transplant that never came. On medical conditions associated with each body part to be donated, it is up to the doctor to decide if the body part if fit for transplanting. Regardless of one’s illness when they die, some parts of their body may still get transplanted.

Some infectious diseases, drug abuse history and general health of the donor become considered before acceptance of any donation. The lungs of a tobacco smoker may be turned down as chances of them being helpful are so minimal. To avoid such a scenario where body parts get rejected, it is crucial to note that an individual has to be healthy and medically fit to allow any of his body part donations. He or she should not have any history of drug use or abuses as this are contributory to rejection of a body part donation (Talbot, 2012).

If one has kidney failure, he or she has to go through a process for the acquisition of a donated kidney to be transplanted. Kidney transplantation is the process where there is fixation of a healthy kidney from one person to another. The new kidney replaces the failed kidney. The process of acquisition of a transplant begins as soon as one’s kidney fails. Transplantation as a result of failure depends on one’s condition (Talbot, 2012). Some conditions make it impossible for implants. If implantation is possible, then the patient undergoes medical evaluation at the transplant center.

The pre transplant process involves several weeks or even months. X-rays and blood samples get carried out to ascertain one’s compatibility with the available donated kidneys. Evaluation of one’s health and also of the donor gets done at this stage. Once the patient passes the medical evaluation and is a suitable recipient, but without a donor, then he or she is put on a waiting list for as long as a kidney is there from a dead donor. The length of one’s wait depends on one’s location and the donor’s region (Petersen & Freckelton,2006).

The length of