Organ Selling

Organ Sales

The gift of life is by far the most selfless and giving act that a single individual could possibly do for another. And now that gift is being challenged by many. The first kidney transplant between two living patients occurred in Boston, Massachusetts on December 23, 1954, the first heart transplant was performed in South Africa in 1967, and the anti-rejection drug, cyclosporine A, was introduced in 1976 (Huebner). With all of these surgical advancements, the demand for organs has grown immensely. Since the demand of organs was so high, the government came out with the National Organ Transplant Law of 1984. This banned the selling of human organs in the United States. Kidney transplantation is the most successful treatment for patients who have end-stage renal disease; however there is a real shortage of kidneys in America. Right now, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, there are more than 70,000 Americans waiting for kidney a transplant. In this field of research there are three different positions that people will take; against, for, and the regulation of organ selling.

Many people believe that the selling of organs is unethical and morally wrong, because it can be viewed as a form of prostitution. But according to Gregory Pence "it is actually unethical for the medical community to ignore approaches that could alleviate the current organ shortage" (Pence). People like Pence think that allowing the purchasing and selling of organs will save many lives. Now doctors see that the sale of vital organs can be a win-win situation for both donor and the recipient (Stewart-Amidei). If donors are willing to give up their own organs, then so be it, it is viewed as an act of public service and can be very rewarding for them. They, not the government, are in charge of their own body. Mohamed A. Ghoneim points out that that because organ selling is prohibited, "transplantation might be carried out secretively under less than optimum conditions with uncertain and undocumented results" (467). This means that people willing to sell an organ may have a procedure done in an unsanitary place and then use the infamous black market to sell their organs. He also points out that the donors are probably being underpaid and cheated. A survey conducted by D. K. Herold concludes that out of 107 patients that needed a kidney transplant, 78.5 percent were willing to pay for a kidney (1394).

In 1991 the World Health Organization stated that "the human body and its parts can not be the subject of commercial transactions" (Ghoneim). Those opposed to the selling of organs feel it is ethically and morally wrong to sell one's body parts. They want people donating organs from the goodness of their heart and not wanting something in return. Albert Huebner explains that "rich patients in need of organs take advantage of the world's poor" (Huebner). The people that are going to become the donors are the people in desperate need of money, and the people who will be receiving them are the people who can afford to pay for an organ. Some people believe that legalizing organ selling would not fix anything. The main reason is that the poor who ended up selling their organ has to possibly pay for hospital fees and appointment's, or have to take time off work after the surgery to recover. So when they turn around, everything is just the same, except they have one less organ. Dr. Mahdav Goyal and Dr. Ravindra Mehta from the Geisinger Health System in Pennsylvania conducted a survey in India to see how many Indians sold kidneys to try and get out of debt and actually how many of those people were able to. They discovered that out "of the 292 participants who sold a kidney to pay off debts, 74 percent still had debts at the time of the survey" (Huebner).

Those in the middle ground see room for negotiating and finding a solution