The Controversy Of Authorized Compensation For Organ Donor

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

My grandfather was a lucky one, though he had to wait 5 years until his luck was fully granted. He was diagnosed with sever kidney failure, spent 5 years on dialysis, then was blessed with the option of getting a kidney… twice. Though the first time he had to reject because of the health of his wife-after her death, he was called once more with the option of having a kidney transplant. However, my grandfather is an exception, most people do not get called once, let alone twice, for the option of receiving a kidney. As of October 25th 2013, about 100,000 people were waiting for a new kidney in the United States. (SCU) Every day, 18 people from that list die along with 10 others being added. As of October 25th, 2013, out of the 100,000 people waiting for a new kidney while only about 10,000 received one; that means 90,000 people are either rolled over to the next year, or die waiting. The marvelousness of kidney donations, compared to other organs donations, is that each person is born with two and can sustain a healthy life with just one; simple facts such as this is what has driven the black market kidney trade to flourish. (CBSNEWS) However, if this is the case then why aren’t more people donating? Is it because they are not getting something in return? Why donate for free when someone on the black market will pay 10,000 dollars? The main arguments against black market organ donations, not limited to kidneys, is that people do not know the risks- yet if someone is

Organ donation has been a controversial topic for decades. This uncertainty stems from one major question; what is death? While medical professions can define death strictly in terms of physiological cessation, individuals may have different beliefs based on their cultural, spiritual, and religious beliefs. These beliefs are often in opposition to organ donation, and they make it seem like the wrong thing to do. However, there is an enormous need for more organ donors because many people die waiting for a transplant. This puts medical professionals, who are trying to save patients’ lives, in a confusing limbo. Whose needs are most important, the potential donor or the recipient? The present code of conduct regarding organ donation does

'Proponents of financial incentives for organ donation assert that a demonstration project is necessary to confirm or refute the types of concerns mentioned above. The American Medical Association, the United Network for Organ Sharing and the Ethics Committee of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons have called for pilot studies of financial incentives. Conversely, the National Kidney Foundation maintains that it would not be feasible to design a pilot project that would definitively demonstrate the efficacy of financial incentives for organ donation. Moreover, the implementation of a pilot project would have the same corrosive effect on the ethical, moral and social fabric of this country that a formal change in policy would have. Finally, a demonstration project is objectionable because it will be difficult to revert to an altruistic system once payment is initiated, even if it becomes evident that financial incentives don 't have a positive impact on organ donation. '(http://www.kidney.org/news/newsroom/positionpaper03)

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

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.

Patients with renal impairment should have a life prolonging care. For patients with renal impairment were a matter of life and death and all were willing to pay the amount it does not matter what you get dialysis. Soon, it became a controversial issue when it was realized that the demand exceeds supply and the equitable distribution of the few dialysis machines

The National Organ Transplant Act, signed into law in 1986, prohibits the sale of human organs. However, as over 100,000 Americans are currently awaiting an organ transplants, recently the idea of compensating organ donors has begun to be seriously considered. Opponents of the idea to compensate donors claim that this will lead to a situation where the wealthy use economic coercion to obtain needed organs from the poor, while supporters point to several methods which can regulate the system of compensation to ensure fair treatment of donors. Maryland is presently considering the idea of allowing donors to be compensated for their organs and we believe that under a strictly regulated system, organ donor compensation can be carried out ethically and safely for all involved.

As mentioned by ADWEEK describes the commercial as an indelicate little fact of life,a PSA promoting organ donation one of the most successful ads of the past year, and probably one of the most daring pieces of marketing ever, beginning with its racy title.(ADWEEK)

It is ethical to compensate organ donors. There are many reasons for supporting compensation for organ donors however; the main one is the number of organ donors will increase, which will save more than thousands of people. NOTA section 301 shows that NOTA’s prohibition was meant to protect against monetary commercial exchanges, such as those between patient–buyers, donor–sellers, and profiteering middlemen. The current view in compensating donors is not paying them the money for their organ on the spot, but by other helpful, resourceful compensations. Currently, there are still a great deal of patients on the waiting list that are dying and in desperate need of major transplants like heart, kidney and even liver. The activists who are against

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).

As technology continues to progress the feasibility of organ transplantation becomes a commonplace. It is very common for organs to be donated after one passes if it is the wishes of the deceased. As the supply of organs from the deceased is greatly outnumbered by the number of patients on waitlists living donors becomes an issue. Many times a relative or close friend is willing to give up an organ to help save a life. The question is: Is it ethical to accept a monetary payment in exchange for an organ to save a life?

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

    Today, medical operations save lives around the world, a feat that surely would surprise our ancestors. Many operations replace defective organs with new ones; for new organs to be ready to be implanted there need to be organ donors. We are not so advanced a society that we can grow replacement organs. Thousands of organ donors in the United States every year are seen as doing the most noble of deeds in modern civilization, and most of the time death has to occur before the organ can be used. Now, though, some are suggesting that organ donors—or their beneficiaries—should be paid for their donations. This should not happen, as it creates a strain on the already tight national budget, forces

In the United States, there are over one hundred thousand people on the waiting list to receive a life-saving organ donation, yet only one out of four will ever receive that precious gift (Statistics & Facts, n.d.). The demand for organ donation has consistently exceeded supply, and the gap between the number of recipients on the waiting list and the number of donors has increased by 110% in the last ten years (O'Reilly, 2009). As a result, some propose radical new ideas to meet these demands, including the selling of human organs. Financial compensation for organs, which is illegal in the United States, is considered repugnant to many. The solution to this ethical dilemma isn’t found in a wallet; there are other alternatives available