National Organ Transplant Act

Every single year 4,000 people die waiting to receive a kidney alone. Thousands more die waiting on the organ donor list. It is the desperate need to survive that has caused people to do immeasurable things, even if it’s illegal. The organ sales on the black market is a very real thing. Obviously, there is a great need for organs, so is the global market for organ sales the answer? This is a complicated and delicate question to pose because many believe that a for profit system cannot exist without exploiting the poor and underprivileged. However, is the need for the market so great that society should be willing to take that risk? Is the fear of death so great, that you would go to jail in order to keep living? This paper will portray different
outlooks on the illegal selling of organs, and will provide information supporting their decisions. It will also include my own opinion, one that travels close to home.

Organs on the Black Market
Every single year 4,000 people die waiting to receive a kidney. 4,000 people, who are parents, siblings, and friends, are taken every year because there are not enough organs available. As a society, we have the ability to take what another human has created within their own body, and literally give someone else a new chance at life. This process is truly a medical miracle. Unfortunately, in the United States alone there are over 73,000 people waiting on just a kidney transplant. Interestingly enough, people can live a full, healthy life with just one kidney, it doesn’t take a death to save a life (Ireland, 2008). Regrettably, even with the brighter circumstances of a kidney transplant only around 66,000 of them are performed worldwide. This means that the 1 million or so, who are in end-stage renal disease will not survive because of the rate at which this procedure is performed is too slow to save all of the lives that are affected. Obviously, there is a great need for organs, so is the global market for organ sales the answer? This is a complicated and delicate question to pose because many believe that a for profit system cannot exist without exploiting the poor and underprivileged. However, is the need for the market so great that society should be willing to take that risk (Ireland, 2008)? Supply and demand exists in many aspects of business. For instance, the amount of oil available directly affects the price of gasoline. Generally, consumers will pay that price. They have places to be and family to visit, or products that need to be delivered to the store shelves. Business does not stop because supply has become more scarce. Unfortunately, the same is the case with organ availability. It is a more intense case of supply and demand. People will do anything to survive. So where do we draw the line? If someone is willing to sell you a kidney, a partial liver, or even a cornea, and can then benefit financially, provide for their families, and you get to live, what harm is done? Tens of thousands of people die every single year on the transplant list. Desperation is an amazing motivator as to what price someone will pay for their life. As it stands now, The National Organ Transplant Act makes it “unlawful for any person to knowingly acquire, receive, or otherwise transfer any human organ for valuable consideration for use in human transplantation.” Essentially, you cannot buy the organ from the donor, but you can compensation travel and any lost wages that the donor may have suffered by donating.
What is the incentive for people to donate? Many believe that if the buying and selling of organs becomes legal, that this would be a unique way of not only saving thousands of lives every year, but also allowing many people to be pulled out of poverty and live a life where one’s family is provided for (Shafer and Cunningham, 2011). The final argument against allowing for monetary compensation for organ donation is that many maintain desperate people do desperate things. This means that people may choose to donate even though it is against their better judgement, thus making the action less voluntary. However, medical experts say that there must be a level of consent and understanding for the danger that the donor will undergo during this process. Consent means that they must understand the risks, as well as, the reward and be willing to undergo the process. Any hesitation would undermine consent and would void the process (Wilkinson,
2015). In my opinion, the desperate need to have your loved ones survive outweigh the problems that go along with it.
I believe that under certain circumstances, I can understand the need for the black market. There are so many facts and angles to consider when looking into organ donation and sales. Clearly, there is a great need or there would not be a black market in the first place.
It is hard to imagine a family or friend that has not been touched by the tragedy of knowing someone who has desperately needed a transplant. My uncle was diagnosed with Hepatitis C about six years ago. We watched as this man we loved deteriorated before our very eyes. It seemed as though every single day was worse than the last. His eyes and skin began to yellow, and the weight started to fall off of him, like it never belonged there in the first place. Suddenly, my uncle was completely consumed by a body that was failing him; and there was absolutely nothing we could do about
it. The worst part is that not only are you sick, but you really have to be on your deathbed before you can even be put on the donor list. You can only pray that the little black beeper goes off. Yet even if someone is lucky enough to receive an organ, there is a price for it. It means that someone else had to give their life so my uncle could continue to be part of ours. It really is a double edge sword. Once you are on the donor list, a partial liver just won’t cut it. Once the beeper goes off, you drop everything and you fly to wherever they tell you. For my uncle, that meant Louisville. He had 5 hours to get there, get prepped, and get started or the liver would have gone bad. If that liver goes bad, a life was wasted, or so you feel. Unfortunately, once you get a new liver, the battle has really just begun. The crazy thing about the human body is that we have the brainpower to figure out how to put someone else’s liver inside of another body, create the drugs to make it work, but sometimes your body outsmarts other people’s brains and it rejects the liver. Then the real scare begins, because you have to start all over and pray a new one comes faster than the last one did. Could he be lucky enough to receive two livers? It is all such a gut wrenching process to watch, not to mention to have to go through. It seems like there would be so many benefits to being able to make the choice to donate. A family that maybe couldn’t afford a proper house or education now could, and someone like my uncle could come home to his wife and daughter, a healthy, vibrant man again. Not everyone is destined to become the next JJ Watt or Peyton Manning. Not everyone needs a body to be in perfect condition to live a normal, healthy life. Many people live every single day with just one kidney, one cornea, have donated bone marrow, blood, etc. Now this does not mean that there are not people out there who would not donate just because it was the right thing to do. What this would mean is that those other thousands of people who could survive without, and needed the means, could get help too. It would take away the evil of the black market and those that are benefiting when others could. There is enough evil and heartbreak in the world already. If everyone could help out one another, maybe some of that evil could go away. Sick men could live to see another day, young children could get the health care they needed, and education that wouldn’t normally be provided to them because a parent was willing to sacrifice part of themselves so another could live. I don’t see the harm. I am an advocate for organ for-profit sales. However, my family has gone through this first hand so we understand the vast importance of that little red heart on your driver’s license.