Pros And Cons Of Commercializing Organs

Would it be ethical or unethical for the government to allow people to buy and sell their organs? With commercializing Organ transplant the possibilities of unethical practices not to mention all the legal ramifications involved regarding this matter has been up for debate for years. Since 2003 there are more than 115,000 men, women and children awaiting organ transplants (1). Commercializing the sale of human tissue has been considered inhumane, irresponsible and totally unacceptable. In 1984 congress passed the National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA).

Violating NOTA could lead to harsh penalties including a 5 years in prison sentence and a fine of up to 50,000 (2). NOTA makes organ trafficking illegal in the United States and
most third world countries. A national registry called the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) was established for organ matching under federal contract private, non-profit organizations. Commercialize the sale of human tissue can open up a wide variety of problems. I do not think the sale of human organs or the prolonging of a brain dead person until their tissues can be harvested should ever be allowed by the government.

There are a number of factors to consider with commercializing organs.
First if commercialization is legalized the process of finding suitable donors would be a challenge because of the scarceness of human tissue and possible matches. Favoritism and unfair practices must be considered. Would it be morally right to deny someone a transplant because their too old? Or to deny someone another transplant operation because the first attempt failed?
Medical technology is ever increasing and advancing, soon the possibilities of useable organs and tissues will increase. Companies that choose to harvest human organs must be carefully watched to make sure people are not taken advantaged of and those companies were not out to receive organs clearly for profit. Second how would they get these organs? Some would ask, if not by private donations such as cadavers, fetuses, animal parts, mechanical devices and homeless people or by murder (3). There are two issues here in question.

I think the government does allow the sale of tissue and organs to some degree. Look at Stem cell research. There’s money to be made in the production of stem cell research. Is this act morally wrong to do? Medical technology is advancing more and more and with this advancement, the number of possibility for organ sources greatly increase. Organ donation is one legalized way to donate precious organs to awaiting
patients.

There are way people can donate their organs by their choice of course and that would be to register as an organ donor. The positive side to donation is you can donate your heart, pancreases, eyes, skin, nerves, muscles, kidneys, a lung, and part of the liver, the intestine, and blood. The down side to this is that you don’t always get to choose who gets the organs and you have to be dead to do most of them. Brain dead patients are often kept on life support until vital organs are removed (4).

Along with this new found technology comes great debate. Ethical questions still continues to arise and not to mention legal issues because transplantable organs are scarce. Speaking from a utilitarianism point of view, although I do not and would not ever condone public selling organs and tissues I do believe if this issue were some way legalized , carefully watched and controlled by the government then there would be a lot of sick and dying patients getting the proper care they so desperately need.

References:
1. Advancing your health/ transplant, 2013 / pros and cons of organ donation.
2. NOTA, US Department of human health services. 2013
3. Legal and Ethical safeguards, Banks, Gloria J, Protection of Society’s most Vulnerable Participants in The Commercialized Organ Transplantation System.
4. Property Rights of The Human Body, Wagner, Danielle M. The commercialization of Organ Transplantation and Biotechnology.