Legal And Ethical Issues Regarding Organ Donation

The medical practice of organ transplantation has grown by leaps and bounds over the last 50 years. Each year the medical profession takes more risk with decisions regarding transplants, how to allocate for organs, and most recently conducting transplants on children with adult organs. “An organ transplantation is a surgical operation where a failing or damaged organ in the human body is removed and replaced with a new one” (Caplan, 2009). Not all organs can be transplanted. The term “organ transplant” typically refers to transplants of solid organs: heart, kidneys, liver, pancreas, and intestines. There are two ways of receiving an organ transplant: from a living human or an organ from a

In 1983 Dr H Barry Jacobs, a physician from Virginia, whose medical license had been revoked after a conviction for Medicare mail-fraud, founded International Kidney Exchange, Ltd. He sent a brochure to 7,500 American hospitals offering to broker contracts between patients with end-stage-renal-disease and persons willing to sell one kidney. His enterprise never got off the ground, but Dr Jacobs did spark an ethical debate that resulted in hearings before a congressional committee headed by Albert Gore, Jr., then a representative from the state of Tennessee. The offensive proposal for kidney sales led to the National Organ Transplant Act to become law in

Organ donations not only save lives but also money and time. If organ donations became prevalent the organ recipient would no longer need dialysis. Since there is no need for dialysis the cost to use the machine would lessen; this means that the cost of equipment would decrease, saving the hospital and insurance company’s money. More lives would be saved as well as benefit from those that no longer need an organ. In the book titled “Elements of Bioethics” adult organ transplants are only that have medical insurance. If organs are taken from recently deceased the cost for those that has no medical coverage was lessen. The process of organ transplantation is life changing and time is crucial. With shorter waiting time it would put ease on the person’s heart to know that this lifesaving event would happen sooner rather than later. In addition, when the organ is taken from the recently deceased the risk would be eliminated from

There are a lot of different things that are going on in this world today that keep people from doing right by God. People need to know that the selling of the organs can make things worst in the country that can cause lots of problem for people who do not have the money to pay the price for organs. It comes a time that if someone needs an organ real bad to help save their life and do not have the money to pay for the organ, what will happen then. There would be people who would like for people to be able to just donate organs so they can help save lives in our country without looking for something in return. People can make a lot of different in our children life if they see that we as adults are doing something positive in the world makes them want to follow in our footsteps and love and care for everyone knows matter what the situation is looking like. People feel that if the selling of the organs would become legal to do, the only people who would be able to afford to buy organs would be the ones who has lots of money and want miss a dime when buying organs. “Being able to pay for an organ, would give an unfair disadvantage to those who may need the transplant more urgently but don’t have the money to offer. Being that there is limited number of organs from dying patients, and limited organs that can be donated from living patients.” (https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid)

Organ donation is a controversial issue in most countries which simply involves the donation of a biological organ or tissue from a living or dead human body to a living recipient who needs a transplant or for scientific research. There have been several debates on the issue that everyone should be willing to donate their organ as it is of no use when they die. Some members of the public consider organ donation as an ultimate gift of life. Some people on the other hand, consider it improper due to religious or moral belief. A donor card is a card which a person carries to specify the approval to the use of their organs or body parts for transplantation or scientific use in the event of their death. This essay will support the statement that everyone should carry a donor card and state the reasons on how it can help improve the chances of survival.

Organ donation is a rigorous process to determine the type of donation that is needed. With technology advancing so much more can be done. How it works depends on the type of organ/tissue that is needed; whether it comes from a living donor or from the deceased. Finding a match for the recipient, being on a waiting list, receiving the organ/transplant, recovery process and follow-ups, understanding the risk and benefit of the donation process, medical, background screening and the financial and emotional aspect of this process.

What do you think can be done when there is a shortage of organ donations? Should people in the need of money sell their organs in the hope of getting some cash? Well, most people in today's society are supporting the idea that people should be allowed to sell their organs if they want. It could save thousands of lives of those people who are waiting for a transplant on the long list that never ends. However, they do not look at the negative affects that this could lead to for some citizens in the society. The article, “Body Snatchers: Organs Harvesting For Profit” by Dale Archer M.D is a good example of showing how people around the world are committing different kind of crimes in order to earn money. Similar to this article is the other article

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).

Every ten minutes, another person is added to the active wait list for an organ donation. That is six people every hour, 144 every day, and 1008 every week. Approximately 120 thousand people need an organ transplant to survive. Of all of those people, only 79 thousand people are on an active wait list, while only 20 thousand transplantations have been completed this year. There are not enough donors to meet the current organ demand, and of those that do donate organs, the costs incurred by the donor do not equal the benefits. The current organ donation system operates under subpar economical standards, and should be revised to allow trade of organs on the free market.

The first successfully transplantation of an organ occurred in 1954, and since then the rates of organ donation have increased substantially (Welbourn, 2014). However, a big discrepancy exists between the amount of available organs and the quantity of people requiring one to survive. Thus, legislations have been made to minimize such discrepancy. Different countries have diverse copying mechanists on how to overcome this issue. Currently, Canada has the opt-in system in which any individual that wishes to become an organ donator may do so by registering (Eggertson, 2012). However, organ donation rates in Canada are quite small compared to other countries such as Spain, Belgium, or the United States – rates standing at 15.5 donors per million population in Canada compared to 35 PMP and 26 PMP in Spain and USA respectively in 2012 (Norris, 2011). Several countries worldwide have opted for an opt-out system in which individuals are presumed to have consent to be organ donors unless specified otherwise, and such countries have higher donor rates, but it is not known if the reason is specifically due to this presumed consent system (Norris, 2011). I believe that an opt-out system (presumed consent) would be beneficial in Canada because it addresses important ethical issues, including autonomy, beneficence, justice, and non-maleficence.

Organ transplantation becomes a prevalent procedures that patients adopt it to cure for end-stage organ failure. Organ transplant is dissected in to organ donation, organ procurement and organ allocation. Since the demand exceeds supply that patients fight for scarce resources. Organ transplantation is not like other medical procedures. It involves organ procurements from donors, either living or deceased. Therefore, ethical issues is big concern. One’s perception, attitude, value, belief, age and health status influence on his or her willingness to donate organ. Meanwhile, one’s perception, attitude, value and belief rely on which social group that he or she comes from and the religion that he or she holds. Ethical dilemmas such as death determination and fairness allocation emerge in organ procurement and allocation.

This results in no more transplants being done than before. This really means that the poorer people are only put at even more of a disadvantage. It has been proven that paid donation doesn't add to the organ supply. For example, we can look at the situation in Israel. They were paying for their citizens to get a transplant with purchased kidneys in other countries, but when they stopped doing this the supply of organ donations rose dramatically there. A similar situation also occurred in the United States. They gave children more access to kidneys from deceased donors in an attempt to increase the supply for them. This resulted in two problems though- the donations from parents fell, so that left the total supply for children unchanged. This also caused less kidneys available for the adults. When that easier source of organs became available, the problem of "crowding out" arose (Capron and Danovitch [A. 13]). This would be the same thing that would happen if we were to replace donated organs with paid donations. The organ supply wouldn’t actually go up because, as people could pay for them, no one would want to donate to the people that couldn’t afford a

The debate surrounding the ethical and legal issues of organ transplants is as old as the process. No one takes the issue lightly as organ transplants are literally a matter of life and death. Despite this controversy, it only makes sense for humans to become organ and tissue donors. Most organs for transplantation come from cadavers, but as these have failed to meet the growing need for organs, attention has turned to organs from living donors. In either case, organ donations are beneficial because they help save lives and help further scientific research.

In the book Unwind, they use 99.4% of their body parts for transplants. In the book, they don’t use the organs that a person doesn’t need to live. The organs that they don’t use are thrown out because no one will ever be in need of one of those organs like an appendix to live. The amount of 99.4% of organs that are used in the book won’t ever become 99.4% in real life. The percentage of organs that are donated will go up because of the advancement in technology in the medical field. Donation of your whole body to science will support medical research and training. (Thomas, 2017)

Organ donation has been on the downward trend in the last couple of years while the need for healthy organ donors are on the rise. On the average day, twenty-two people die while waiting on the organ transplant list. While it can only take one person to be a living donor to save a life, and in the case of being a donor after death, one person can save up to eight people. Since the gap between organ donation and the need for organs continues to grow apart, something has to be done to reverse this trend. People must be encouraged to become a living organ donor and to be an after death donor. The key to being an after death donor, is that the family members need to know about their loved one’s wishes and make sure to have a living will in place. Doctors are placed in that insensitive position to talk with the families after the death of loved ones, about whether the patient was an organ donor while trying to be considerate to their loss. There have been many ideas to help reduce the organ transplant list in order to preserve more lives, while educating the country on the importance of organ donations. To encourage more people to become an organ donor the United States Government needs to change the laws dealing with organ donations, in order to bring down the waiting periods on the organ transplant list.