Chapter 8: Steve Jobs

Every day some dies after waiting years on a transplant list. The National Organ Transplant Act of 1984 says that in the United States, the sale of organs is illegal. Some believe this act may be preventing thousands of people from getting the organs that will save their lives. The truth is every day someone dies and their organs could be used to help others and everyday a life of one and the livelihood of another could be saved. The reasons for allowing the sale of organs is very simple to understand. It can help others financially, save money on medical expenses and most importantly, save lives. Critiques believe this would be a mistake causing spur of the moment decisions, and illegal obtain these organs for sale. With the use of regulation, these doubts can be laid to rest. Before the problem can be solved, the problem has to be identified.

Since the WHO is not, in any way, going to lift the ban, and one of the most efficient ways to increase the supply of available organs for the thousands of people on organ waiting lists is to make some form of donation and selling legal, other options must be sought-after. By combining two opposing viewpoints it is possible for a whole new approach to this rapidly growing problem to transpire, for there may be more agreeable aspects than what meets the eye.

In this paper I will be using the normative theory of utilitarianism as the best defensible approach to increase organ donations. Utilitarianism is a theory that seeks to increase the greatest good for the greatest amount of people (Pense2007, 61). The utilitarian theory is the best approach because it maximizes adult organ donations (which are the greater good) so that the number of lives saved would increase along with the quality of life, and also saves money and time.

The medical industry had been achieving more in the stage of medical advancements, though they are still in the early phase. Artificial organs have been one of those achievements. Although they have achieved such, artificial organs are not perfect. Most doctors as well as patients would prefer to replace a dying organ with a compatible human organ, rather than with an artificial or animal organ. Yet due to a there being less organs donated than recipients, artificial and animal organs are becoming more common in transplants. Most of this issue is because people are unaware of how organ donation works, the organs that can be donated, how many people are in need, and the advancements that have happened in the field. Organ donation saves hundreds of lives every year, but many lives are recklessly lost due to a shortage of organ donors.

To support his argument, Huebner uses statements such as "The sellers are often tricked or coerced by brokers, they don 't always get the promised payment, and even when they are paid, that rarely solves whatever problem prompted them to sell the organ. In fact, the "solution" usually makes matters much worse.” Huebner also states that "Rich patients in need of organs take advantage of the world 's poor"(Huebner, Albert), insinuating that only rich people can afford to buy organs. While both of these statements support the claim made, there isn 't much actual research to support it. No evidence or believable examples were found in the article. While it may be true that more rich people are able to receive organ transplants, it 's not fair to say that it 's only the rich people who are exploiting the poor. That is, if they are even being exploited at all. Who is to say that the poor people who would sell organs wouldn 't be doing so in order to make a better life for themselves and their family? Until an organ market is established and research is done to support these claims, there is very little fact to support them. This leads into the next claim, that commodifying organs will take the integrity out of donating.

Every day, 20 people die because they are unable to receive a vital organ transplant that they need to survive. Some of these people are on organ donation lists and some of them are not. The poor and minorities are disproportionately represented among those who do not receive the organs they need. In the United States alone, nearly 116,000 people are on waiting lists for vital organ transplants. Another name is added to this list every 10 minutes. This paper will argue that organ donation should not be optional. Every person who dies, or enters an irreversible vegetative state with little or no brain function, should have his or her organs-more specifically, those among the organs that are suitable for donation-harvested. A single healthy donor who has died can save up to eight lives (American Transplant Foundation).

Imagine, waking up one morning a transplant patient in need of an organ, finding out that there was a law just passed that permitted a patient to purchase the needed organ legally. Fortunately, there are those in the medical community that believe that the legalization of organ sales, is the only way to alleviate the rapidly growing problem of the shortage of available organs needed for transplants. The fact that altruism the premise that the donor program was first established under, is not able to meet the serious issue of supply and demand, has forced the medical community to look for other remedies. Consider a campaign launched by the federal government (politicians) in conjunction with the medical community, drug, and insurance companies that would bring awareness to the general public that focused on the need to legalize the sales of live human organ donor sales. There is also another side to this debate, there are those that are adamantly opposed to this concept, they believe that legalization will create more problems than it will solve. What this essay will examine is the

Innovative advances in the practice of medicine have increased the life span of the average American. This along with the growing population in the United States and has created a shortfall in the number of organs available for transplant today. The current system of allocation used to obtain organs for transplant faces difficulty because of two primary reasons according to Moon (2002). The two perceptions that stop potential organs donors are that the allocation criteria is unfair and favors certain members of society and/or that organs may be allocated to someone who has destroyed their organs by misuse (Moon, 2002). Many individuals decline to donate organs because anyone requiring an organ transplant is placed on a waiting list and it is possible that individuals who have destroyed their organs by their own actions or convicted criminals could receive donated organs before someone whose organs are failing through no fault of their own and positively contribute to society. When a celebrity or wealthy individual requires a transplant they are often viewed as "jumping" the waitlist but

the sale of organs such as the dilution of altruism in society, the risk that

In addition, surgeons have learned how to keep increasingly patients alive longer and how to make more people eligible for transplants. Still, there are shortage of organs donation. According to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), a non-profit, scientific and educational organization, organizes transplant registration. 3448 people died in 1995 because organs were not available for them in time. A third to a half of all people on waiting lists die before an organ can be found for them. This shortage raises several difficult ethical problems. How should the limited supply of organs be distributed? Should donors be encouraged to donate by the use of financial incentives? Opponents of the sale of organs point out that the inevitable result will be further exploitation of poor people by the

The article that will be examined is “Vera 's Kidney, Walter 's Money: Desperation, Greed and the Global Organ Trade” (Ginzel, Kraushaar, Winter, 2012). In this article, it features a wealthy 74-year-old man who only had months to live with his failing kidneys. It also features a single mother in Istanbul, who needed money to fly her daughter over but simply could not afford it. Putting the law aside, the old man was willing to pay $10,000 dollars for her kidney. Another article that was found stated, “Studying organ sales: short term profits, long term suffering” (Kahn, 2002) interviewed 350 people who recently sold their organs. “The vast majority reported selling a kidney to pay off debts, but nearly 75 percent said they were still in debt six years later” (Kahn, 2002). Even though organ sales are still illegal here in the U.S, many people are becoming so desperate that they do not mind putting the law aside in spite of saving their own lives. The criteria that constitutes being desperate relating to the legalization of organ sale

In the United States today, people lose their lives to many different causes. Though this is tragic, there are also a large group of people who could benefit from these deaths; and those people are people in need of an organ transplant. Although a sudden or tragic death can be heart breaking to a family, they could feel some relief by using their loved ones' organs to save the lives of many others. This act of kindness, though, can only be done with consent of both the victim and the family; making the donation of organs happen much less than is needed. The need for organs is growing every day, but the amount provided just is not keeping up. Because of the great lack of organ donors, the constant need for organs,

In February 2003, 17-year-old Jesica Santillan received a heart-lung transplant at Duke University Hospital that went badly awry because, by mistake, doctors used donor organs from a patient with a different blood type. The botched operation and subsequent unsuccessful retransplant opened a discussion in the media, in internet chat rooms, and in ethicists' circles regarding how we, in the United States, allocate the scarce commodity of organs for transplant. How do we go about allocating a future for people who will die without a transplant? How do we go about denying it? When so many are waiting for their shot at a life worth living, is it fair to grant multiple organs or multiple

Millions of people all over the world die each year due to organ failure; however, doctors have found a way to remedy this issue through organ donation, a process in which a person gives up a working organ for a patient in need. A few of the most common transplants performed are kidneys, livers, and lungs; donors may include both the living and the deceased. This process requires major, extensive testing and long periods of searching for organ matches. Medical professionals and ordinary citizens from all over the world argue whether people should receive a financial compensation for the donation of organs. Some people believe the donation process should be done simply because of moral values, while others feel organ donation should be rewarded in some form. Meanwhile, many people are dying due to a lack of available organs as this issue is being disputed. Because organ donation has become such a dire issue in the medical world, society has to institute a new method of saving lives.

Every 12 minutes in the United States another name is added to the list of people waiting for an organ transplant. Of the over 100,000 people on this list it is estimated that 18 people die each day due to the lack of available organs (American Transplant Foundation, 2014) What if these lives could be saved and the number of available organs for transplant could be increased exponentially? Does it make moral, financial, or ethical sense to bury or incinerate perfectly viable organs that could be used to save the lives others? The purpose of this paper is to argue that organ donation should be compulsory unless a person or family specifically opts out.