Legalizing Organ Sales Will Save Lives - Essay Example

Legalizing Organ Sales Will Save Lives The demand for kidneys, livers, lungs, heart and other vital organs is escalating. On the other hand, their supply is still very low. The sum of patients dying due to failure to have a vital organ transplant has thus increased. The irony of the situation is that a lot of the much-needed organs go to the grave when their owners die for instance in road accidents, wars, heart attacks and strokes. People travel far to get the organs, yet they can get from near their homes. The well-intentioned prohibition of organ sales has created an emergence of unscrupulous opportunistic intermediaries who create black underground markets. It is time the government legalized the sale of organs. Legalization of organ sales will lower vital organs-related deaths boosting the supply of such organs, eliminating illicit organ markets, allowing access to cheaper organ transplant, and compensate donors. The demand for organs is overwhelming, and yet the supply is far too low. Right now, over 85,000 people in U.S. alone are on the list of those waiting for organs (Calandrillo 72). Out of these, a majority (about 60,000) requires a kidney, 17,000 are in desperate need of a liver, 4,000 are hoping for a lung, while 3,500 are desperate for a heart. The organs are the most important for the survival of any human being. Any defect in them can shorten a person’s life within a short period. The patients on the waitlist thus urgently need them as they are living on borrowed time. However, the supply of these organs is shockingly far much less. Calandrillo says that the year 2003 saw organs harvest from only 13,000 individuals to facilitate the mere 25,000 transplants in the U.S. (72). It means that the many patients who were not successful to get a required organ sadly died. Ironically, the painful shortage is because a majority of the organs go to the grave when the owners die. A lack of donation-appropriate organs is not a primary cause. A bumper sticker once read, “Please do not take your organs with you to heaven. Heaven understands that we are desperate for them here on the earth” (The Economist). Each year witnesses many Americans die in ways that would make it possible for an organ harvest. For example, some die in road accidents, others due to heart attacks and strokes but organs come from only a few of the possible donors. In fact, about 75% of the Americans are not ready to donate organ upon their death. Hence, the remaining percentage that have opted to offer an organ cannot sufficiently meet the national needs. The situation has forced Americans who need the organs to scour the world in search of the organs that their fellow citizens can offer. Consequently, the high demand and the low supply of organs have resulted into some unscrupulous intermediaries curving an opportunity in procuring the organs through black markets. India has witnessed the latest of the numerous organ-reaping scandals. It was among several poor nations that allowed the sale of organs but has now banned the trade (The Economist). Organ black markets have also flourished in South Africa. For example, Amit Kumar is a doctor in India who is waiting for a trial in an Indian court. He had confessed that he had carried out hundreds of illegal transplants for wealthy customers from Canada, America, Greece and other rich countries. The Economist says that South Africa noticed incidences where donors from Israel, Brazil and Romania were paid between $ 5,000-20,000 to donate a kidney in a black market. These are just some of the very many organs trafficking around the world. Slabbert says that the most commonly practiced organ trafficking is where people enter into an informal or formal agreement to part with their organs (81). However, the intermediaries often end up not paying at all or pay only part of the price once the seller parts with his/her kidney (Slabbert 81). Sometimes, the organ removal and the transplant may go wrong and thus lead to incapacitation or death of recipients and donors. Since the trade is illegal in their countries, the cases go unreported. The lack of a bright line in the well-intentioned ethical laws has contributed to the spread of black market for organs. Berman says that historically, the public perceived that organ donation is divine, but the sale of organs is sinful and unethical. However, the same ethical laws legalize the sale and buying of other body parts. It is legal for women to act as surrogate mothers in renting their wombs or sell some of their reproductive eggs. It is also legal for men to sell their sperm, and for individuals to sell their hair and blood (Berman). Someone can survive without these parts as opposed to the vital organs. It is just discriminating and unclear when the governments refuse to apply the same laws of legalization in the case of organ donations. Some opponents of organ sales claim that offering valuable incentives such as finance for organ donation leads to commoditization of organs. They claim that it exemplifies improper and unethical treatment of a living human body parts as commodities for sale. They use the underlying moral intuition that someone can appropriately procure and distribute goods such as cars through the market. However, he/she cannot do so when it comes to body organs like kidney (Cherry 361). Cherry argues that the opponents fail to understand that human “organs are, in fact, manipulable and can be interchangeable with others of the same kind” (362). The reason forms one of the bases of medical transplantation. When doctors remove a kidney from Jennifer and surgically implant it in Jane, it becomes a living part of Jane and ceases being part of Jennifer. Transplantation systems objectify human organs for purposes of ensuring transplant. Furthermore, commoditization of organs and thus legalization of organ sales will reduce organs black markets and compensate donors or their families. Opponents of organ sales also claim that organ sales will result in rich men and women that participate in unfair trade and exploitation at the expense of the poor in the society. According to Mark Cherry, some opponents also claim that sales of organs will only avail make them the affluent and well-to-do people in the society lead to shortages of kidney and other vital body organs (14). However, they fail to realize that these traits belong to the current situation of black markets. Moreover, a sure way of making a market to rife with illicit practices, dominance and shortage is to force it underground and prohibit it (Gregory). The 1920s prohibition of drugs and alcohol only created a breeding ground for violence and criminality. Friedman and Friedman argue that legislation, per se, may not help in forcing human beings to comply with order (Friedman & Friedman 961). While selling human organs is against the current law, illegal kidney and organ transplants are rampant all over the world. The governments should thus learn a lesson from the prohibition of drugs, alcohol and organ sales. It needs to legalize sales of organs to eliminate illicit sales that are full of exploitations of the poor. It will make it possible to regulate the trade to protect the donors and recipients, ensure balance in supply and demand, and consequently reduce death rates. Both the poor and rich will also benefit from the kidney transplants, a most needed organ since transplantation is more permanent, safer, surer, and cheaper than dialysis. Dialysis is expensive, harsh, and temporary (MacKay 1). It does not work as well as a kidney transplant. Dialysis acts as a mechanical and artificial kidney that filters the blood of a patient. Those who depend on it will have to stay on the machine for several treatment sessions every week, with each session lasting for three hours. Their lives are thus tied to the machine like a prison. Dialysis also adds excessive stress to the body and makes the patient develop faintness, tiredness and hence unable to work and carry out other normal activities. On the other hand, MacKay says that a kidney transplant is the closest way towards the cure of kidney failure (1). The procedure is both reliable and safe, thanks to the current milestones in medical services. Iran is a country that offers the best example of how the kidney and other vital organ transplants can be safe and save lives if the sale of organs is legalized. Iran has authorized procurement of kidney in a market situation and ensured that there is a properly regulated market with only modest room agreements (Hippen 2). The Iranian government provides the vendors fixed compensation of about $1,200 and a limited health insurance coverage. The seller also receives an extra remuneration from either the recipient or a designated charitable organization. The country is now boasting of a reduction in the people on the waiting list for organ transplantation. It has eliminated their kidney waiting list by permitting a limited market in the live-donor vending. It has helped them reduce dangers of such a system. Hippen says that designated non-profitable organizations and other authorized players act as intermediaries, thus eliminating unscrupulous intermediaries (2). The escalating number of people dying due to failure to get an organ transplant will reduce if America and countries that well intentionally prohibit the sales of organs legalize the practice. The illicit sale of organs is already happening but in black markets. Legalization of the trade will thus help in regulating its practices to ensure proper intermediary, balanced demand and supply, proper pricing, and safe transplantation. It will eventually lower the number of deaths as people will readily get access to quick, cheaper, and reliable transplants. The governments should learn from the Iranian system of organ transplants and begin to regulate rather than prohibit sales of organs. The issue of well-intentional but insensitive ethical considerations should not bar thousands of patients from getting the life-saving organs. Works Cited Berman, R. "Selling Organs should be Legal." Stop Organ Trafficking Now. The Jerusalem Post, 10 Aug. 2005. Web. 30 Mar. 2015. http://www.stoporgantraffickingnow.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Selling-Organs-Should-Be-Legal-August-10-2005.pdf Calandrillo, S. P. "Utilizing Incentives to end Americas Organ Shortage." Geo. Mason L. Rev. 13.1 (2004): 69-133. Web. 30 Mar. 2015. https://www.lifesharers.org/articles/calandrillo.pdf Cherry, Mark J. Kidney for Sale by Owner: Human Organs, Transplantation, and the Market. Washington: Georgetown UP, 2005. Print. Cherry, M. J. "Embracing the Commodification of Human Organs: Transplantification and Freedom of the Sale of Body Parts." Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law and Policy 2.3 (2009): 359-378. Web. 30 Mar. 2015. http://www.slu.edu/Documents/law/SLUJHP/Cherry.pdf Friedman, E. A., and A. L. Friedman. "Payment for Donor Kidneys: Pros and Cons." Kidney International. International Society of Nephrology, 15 Feb. 2006. Web. 30 Mar. 2015. https://hods.org/pdf/Payment%20for%20donor%20kidneys-%20Pro%27s%20and%20Cons.pdf Gregory, A. "Why Legalizing Organ Sales Would Help to Save Lives, End Violence — The Atlantic." The Atlantic. The Atlantic Monthly Group, 9 Nov. 2011. Web. Hippen, B. E. "Organ Sales and Moral Travails: Lessons from the Living Kidney Vendor Program in Iran." Policy Analysis 1.614 (2008): 1-20. Web. 30 Mar. 2015. http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa-614.pdf Mackay, J. "Organ Transplant will Save Lives." (2004): 1-8. Web. 30 Mar. 2015. http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/49530/STS-011Fall-2004/NR/rdonlyres/Science--Technology--and-Society/STS-011Fall-2004/B851C584-E3D6-4BB4-BF71-94B19FB9B066/0/organ_selling_tr.pdf Slabbert, M. "Combat organ trafficking – reward the donor or regulate sales." Koers 73.1 (2008): 75-99. Web. 30 Mar. 2015. http://www.koersjournal.org.za/index.php/koers/article/viewFile/154/123 The Economist. "Organ Transplants: The Gap Between Supply and Demand." The Economist. N.p., Oct. 2008. Web. 30 Mar. 2015. http://www.economist.com/node/12380981 Read More