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The Importance Of Organ Donation

Decent Essays

Throughout the world there are thousands of desperate people seeking transplants; kidneys being near the top of the list. The number of people who require a kidney transplant is escalating faster than the number of kidneys available, (Venter, B., 2013). The specific focus of Bonnie Venter’s article is determining whether or not the payment of kidney donors could be regarded as constitutionally acceptable. To establish constitutionality, the following rights were analyzed: The right to life, issues of human dignity, self-determination, and privacy, as well as, of course, the basic human right to healthcare. Moral principals do not appear to have been one of the benchmarks. Her conclusion that it should be constitutionally acceptable to remunerate a kidney donor for his or her kidney is at best a slippery slope. Organ sales remain illegal because it is unethical, unsafe, and the practice interferes with the legal system in place for organ donation. Senator John Edwards, in a speech to 2004 Democratic Convention delegates, spoke eloquently about Two Americas, (Edwards, J., 2004), and the following two cases well illustrate this point. Simon Fischler was diagnosed in 1993 with cardiomyopathy, (Baldwin, D., 1994). This fatal disease eats the heart muscle. Fischler had his much needed transplant about a month after initial diagnosis. Fishler’s father got publicity about his son because he was known as "the hockey king,” millions knew him as the cable commentator

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