Selling Organs for Transplantation Essay

Selling Organs for Transplantation

Abstract

The need for transplant organs has far outstripped the supply of available cadaveric organs. Hundreds of people on waiting lists, who could be saved by transplantation, die each year. This severe shortage has justified the extension of transplantation to the use of living donors, but there are still not enough organs to meet the need. This paper discusses the justification for changing policies in order to encourage organ donation. It presents reasons for allowing payments to be made to families that donate cadaveric organs. It also presents reasons for allowing payments to be made to living donors, and guidelines for how an ideal policy could be structured.

 

LIVING DONOR ORGAN TRANSPLANTATION is the only field of medicine in which two individuals are intimately involved: the donor and the recipient. It is also the only field of medicine in which altruistic giving of oneself is the basis ofthe medical practice. I have been asked to address a very specific aspect of this process, that is, living organ donation for financial remuneration. No other subject in the transplant experience is as controversial. Many of those involved in the field—surgeons, physicians, social scientists, ethicists, and theologians—have expressed an opinion on this issue. As a result of impressive gains in this field, organ recipients now have a significant chance for both long-term survival and a reasonable quality of life. These successes have led nearly 80,000 individuals to opt for transplantation as a form of therapy. Unfortunately, the number of
organs available has lagged far behind the demand. Every year thousands die while waiting for the gift of life that an organ transplant could provide. In the case of cadaveric giving, the family of the brain-dead person is asked to donate.