Does A Cost-Benefit Analysis Ethically Justify Vending Organs?
The lack of transplantable organs has encouraged a lot of intellectuals to think of using financial incentives as a motive to facilitate organs donation. There has been recurring commentaries that appeal using market approach in the transplant community. There is an economic analysis that came up showing the effectiveness of successful of transplantation and emphasizing the imperative need for organs. However, there is a question that should be addressed; does a cost-benefit analysis ethically justify vending organs? Actually, there are a lot of social and ethical consequences that should be taken into consideration when answering this question.
There are two main reasons that supporters of organ sales commonly use in their debate. First,
they justify it as a way for poor to lift themselves out of indigence. Robert Veatch said "if we are a society that deliberately and systematically turns its back on the poor, we must confess our indifference to the poor, and lift the prohibition on the one means they have to address their problems themselves". Moreover, they argue that if the organs market is entirely controlled by governments' regulations, there wouldn't be a place for exploitation, and we can fix the organs shortage.
If the reason behind using a market approach in the transplant community is helping poor people, there is no logic to subject this market to governments' scrutiny. For instance, if someone got a better price for their kidneys through the internet away from the government's regulations, why wouldn't they go with it to make more money? Additionally, some recently published reports investigated the status of poor people who donated their kidneys for money showed that they ended up in a far worse situation in terms of their financial, social and health statuses than they were before donation. Eventually, adopting such policies is ripe societies for exploitation and compromise moral foundations. Discussing the ethical concerns of organs sales should forego any discussion pertaining to scientific or economic analysis. Policy makers should think profoundly about these concerns before adopting any legislation supporting the market approach in such a field.
There are two main reasons that supporters of organ sales commonly use in their debate. First,
they justify it as a way for poor to lift themselves out of indigence. Robert Veatch said "if we are a society that deliberately and systematically turns its back on the poor, we must confess our indifference to the poor, and lift the prohibition on the one means they have to address their problems themselves". Moreover, they argue that if the organs market is entirely controlled by governments' regulations, there wouldn't be a place for exploitation, and we can fix the organs shortage.
If the reason behind using a market approach in the transplant community is helping poor people, there is no logic to subject this market to governments' scrutiny. For instance, if someone got a better price for their kidneys through the internet away from the government's regulations, why wouldn't they go with it to make more money? Additionally, some recently published reports investigated the status of poor people who donated their kidneys for money showed that they ended up in a far worse situation in terms of their financial, social and health statuses than they were before donation. Eventually, adopting such policies is ripe societies for exploitation and compromise moral foundations. Discussing the ethical concerns of organs sales should forego any discussion pertaining to scientific or economic analysis. Policy makers should think profoundly about these concerns before adopting any legislation supporting the market approach in such a field.