Buying and Selling Organs

Buying and Selling Organs

Introduction

Organ transplantation has been considered one of the greatest medical advances of this century because it provides a way of organ donation from a deceased or living with terminal organ failure patients. A very important issue in medical technology and scientific advances have made the transfer of organs and tissues. Important organ failure and organ supply, especially from the body of the increasing incidence of, and have created an organ supply and organ demand, which leads to a very long wait time and more and more the death of organ the huge gap between the wait. These events have raised many ethical, moral and social issues relating to the supply and in vivo organ distribution of xenotransplantation, the risks and benefits of organ donation, duties and responsibilities to deal with the issue of deceased organ donation, and the medical profession, and social assistance those who need help (Cohen, 1995).

Discussion

The shortage of human organs is causing on of the biggest ethical issues in organ transplantation. Even though, transplantation centres would like to transplant all patients who need new the organs, unfortunately, there are not enough living or cadaver donors available to help as many patients as need it. It has also led to the practice of organ sale by entrepreneurs for financial gains in some parts of the world through exploitation of the poor, for the benefit of the wealthy (Cohen, 1993).

Ethical evaluation criteria include the justice, utility, and beneficence principles. The United Network of Organ Sharing (UNOS) policy attempts to balance these principles. Further, this policy does not recommend restrictions based on age or disease. Two fundamental principles of organ allocation separate the transplant community. First principle described by Arthur Caplan suggests that in order to maximize efficiency, organ transplant would need to favour those recipients for whom a transplant will guarantee the highest chance of living a long and high quality life. The second principle is urgency of need, which would favour allocating organs to those who are the sickest and most likely to die. These principles represent ethical positions but at the same time lead to different consequences in terms of who would live in the end.

The principle of non-malfeasance is at variance with the practice of using living donors, whether they are related or not to their recipients, for organ transplantation. The concept of having healthy individuals donating their organs not to improve their own health but to help and benefit others has been a questionable subject in organ transplantation. The reason this topic has been debatable is because of the danger of having healthy individuals putting their lives at risk while trying to help others. The main ethical question is whether or not potential donor own his/her organs and does autonomy allows removal if he/she desires (Radcliffe, 2008).

According to Caplan, nobody owns their organs and the state limits the individual's autonomy over them. An addition, he states that individual can legally refuse all medical treatment whether or not it causes great ...