Organ Transplantation Essay

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.

It was only a matter of time before a businessman in Virginia saw a way to profit from the success of transplantation. In 1983 H. Barry Jacobs announced the opening of a new exchange through which competent adults could buy and sell organs. His failing was in his decision to use needy immigrants as the source of the organs (Pence 36). As a result Congress, passed the National Organ Transplant Act (Public Law 98-507) in 1984, which prohibited the sale of human organs and violators would be subjected to fines and imprisonment (“Donation Details”).

Faced with a loved one’s organ failure and in need of an organ donor to survive, are we concerned with the organs origin? As of July 2017, according to the Human Resources & Services Administration (HRSA), there are 117,000 people on the organ waiting list (over 82% of those require a kidney), and an average of 22 people die each day waiting for organs (HRSA, 2017). Comparatively, the amount of prisoners executed in the United States each year is relatively small, yet one organ donor can save as many as eight lives and a cadaver can be used numerous ways in research (HRSA, 2017). Additionally, prisoners can be considered as live organ donors, especially when volunteering a kidney. Allowing inmate organ donations seems simple, yet it is shrouded with moral, ethical, and possible legal concerns. Arguments favoring or opposing incarcerated donors include the prisoner’s health, vulnerabilities, retribution, deterrence, and any form of compensation by reducing sentencing or stays of execution. The ethical aspect of medical staffs and courts involved in inmate executions and the removal of organs leads to heated discussions. Remarkably, there are no federal laws concerning inmate organ donors, and only Utah enacted state laws on the issue. Subsequently, other than Utah, any prisoner’s request to take part in organ donation is decided by prison officials or the governor where the inmate is confined. As the need for organs continues to outpace

In today’s medical field there is a profuse amount of room for ethical questioning concerning any procedure performed by a medical professional. According to the book Law & Ethics for Medical Careers, by Karen Judson and Carlene Harrison, ethics is defined as the standards of behavior, developed as a result of one’s concept of right and wrong (Judson, & Harrison, 2010). With that in mind, organ transplants for inmates has become a subject in which many people are asking questions as to whether it is morally right or wrong.

As the prison population in America grows in numbers and increases in age, questions and debates about the allocation of medical resources to prisoners will grow in urgency. One issue which arises every so often is whether convicted felons, especially those who are awaiting capital punishment, should receive the same level of medical care as others in society - including scarce donor organs for the purpose of transplantation. As is often the case, the debate over whether a death row inmate should receive an organ transplant is not a single controversy, but rather several rolled into one. Being able to address the larger question requires disentangling the smaller questions and examining each in turn. What role, if any, should a person 's

The OPTN says that just because someone is in prison doesn’t mean they should not be considered for an organ transplant, the “screening for all potential recipients should be done at the candidacy stage and once listed, all candidates should be eligible for equitable allocation of organs” (648). On the basis of social worth, physicians shouldn’t discriminate by using social value as criteria for medical decisions. Sade says that psychosocial factors may be used as selection criteria, however, because they might shed light on whether or not adequate social support systems exist for the transplant recipient. “The prison sentence is payment for the crime; the prisoner owes nothing more to society, certainly not his or her life” (647). The transplant center brings up the issue of money. When a non-prisoner has a transplant operation, they fund the surgery with the help of insurance and public health programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Prisoners have neither private nor public insurance aside from what the prison system has in their budget, so this begs the question, “should the prison pay for a heart transplant for a convicted criminal?” The answer is no. Most prison systems can only afford to provide general health care, but not the large amount of funds needed for a heart transplant. Sade says the bill for aftercare of a prisoner’s heart transplant done in California in

Available became controversial. While the question of the dialysis machine is still controversial, the health system was caught in another ethical dilemma regarding organ transplantation. Organ transplantation is closely linked to the issue of cleanliness because patients with kidney failure can get an organ transplant as an alternative to hemodialysis. The issue is complicated by the fact Medicare is financed by organ transplant, and there are those who believe that the distribution of rare transplant is not right. There are thousands of terminal patients whose lives can be saved by organ transplantation, but there are no formulas of work that can be used to determine which of the thousands of patients will be given priority. It is left to the discretion of medical officers to decide who is worth saving. The ability to keep someone alive by replacing one or more of their major organs is a splendid achievement of medicine of the 20th century.

Another questionable organ recipient other than the criminal is an alcoholic. There is a moral dilemma over whether or not somebody who has intentionally caused his or her organ to fail should receive a new organ before somebody whose organ has failed through no fault of his own. According to the equal access view, one’s lifestyle choices are not factors when considering access to medical procedures. According to the maximum benefit view, however, a medical bias should be taken into consideration. Alcoholic cirrhosis is a disease in which the liver is severely scarred due to excessive alcohol consumption. If the goal of bioethics is to maximize life, then non-reformed alcoholics should not be allowed to register on the national organ distribution list. Since their alcoholic cirrhosis is still worsening,

Organ transplantation is a term that most people are familiar with. When a person develops the need for a new organ either due to an accident or disease, they receive a transplant, right? No, that 's not always right. When a person needs a new organ, they usually face a long term struggle that they may never see the end of, at least while they are alive. The demand for transplant organs is a challenging problem that many people are working to solve. Countries all over the world face the organ shortage epidemic, and they all have different laws regarding what can be done to solve it. However, no country has been able to create a successful plan without causing moral and ethical dilemmas.

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).

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

Organ donation begins with a person who recognizes an opportunity to help others, enrolls in a state donor registry, and shares the decision to be a donor with family members and friends. The culmination of

Wikipedia is a good start because it gives me a general background information on organ transplantation. The website contains contents that are describe in details. The details include the type of transplant, the process of transporting the organ and tissue to the right place, and the types of donor. Through this, I was able to discover some ethical issues such as forced donation and illegal removal of organs without consent. I learned that doctors in the UK have accused China of mistreating its high capital punishment rate (China claims that the selling of organs were illegal as of July 2006 and that all prisoner organ donors have filed consent). I also learned that one of the driving forces for illegal organ trafficking is the value differences for organs and transplant operation in different parts of the

Thousands of Canadians today are waiting for the phone call that will let them know that they may have a chance to live longer and better with a new working organ like liver or heart or kidney. They are waiting for another chance to live beyond the weeks or months and even years after receiving a donated organ. However this has caused primary ethical dilemmas which arise from the shortage of available organs. In fact the need for organs is far greater than the available supply. The gap between need and supply has pushed governments to using unethical methods that deny some people their consent of donating organs. Which lead to the question do the prisoners have the freedom to make informed consents to donation their

The harvesting of organs is a huge problem worldwide. The sale of organs may result in an individual being murdered simply for his or her organs (Hongda.) In order to buy food impoverished families only choice may be to sell their organs (Callahan.) Those who are precipitants of organs coming from Inmates are taking huge health risk. Jeff Testerman, author of “Organs of Condemned sought for Transplant”, stated “The prison population is such a high-risk group, particularly for hepatitis and AIDS.” When someone receives an organ from a donor within a prison’s walls, they are not always assured of the health security of the prisoner’s organs of which they are getting.