Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2224554.stm
There have been plenty of arguments over the entire concept of exchanging organs for commercial purposes. Although there has recently been a controversy over this issue in Singapore, other countries like Great Britain, Australia, certain states in USA as well as Japan have faced problems with regards to the banning of organ trading. However, it is sometimes important to take a step back and view the situation in an objective light. Organ trading does have a fundamental flaw, but it is one that is inherent in nearly all societal norms and stereotypes in today's world context.
One point in favour of organ trading is the entire principle of making one's own decision. Granted, even the most impoverished individual will not choose to donate their heart or lung and thus die. Neither would a surgeon be prepared to conduct such an operation. Yet, both a kidney and a piece of liver can be removed without significant detriment. It is, to some extent, even patronising to consider that the individual cannot make a reasoned decision to donate or sell his or her own organs. He or she should be granted his right to make his own choices. The family of a relative recently deceased should also to be able to choose to save the life of another and simultaneously receive some remuneration in terms of payment.
Another point in support of organ trading is the current existence of commercialization of similar products. A legitimate market in human organs would not be inconsistent with either public or private healthcare services. The transplant surgeon, the nursing staff and even the pharmaceutical companies producing the anti-reaction drugs receive payment for each operation performed. Why should the donor of the organs, arguably the most important actor in any transplant, not also receive remuneration? The United States already tolerates markets for blood, semen, human eggs, and surrogate wombs. Is there a moral difference between a heart or a lung and an ovum? It is remarkable that a lifesaving treatment should apparently have no financial value.
However, one point that most governments have been reiterating for the better part of the last 20-odd years (the USA was the first to pass the National Organ Transplantation Act in 1984, which prohibits the sale of human organs from either dead or living donors) is the fact that organ trading would result in a widening of the rich-poor gap. Organs involved in commercialization will only flow in one direction - from the Third World to the First. Healthy, but poor individuals in Asia and Africa are victim to scavenging organ merchants with deep pockets in developed nations. The financial rewards make the decision for a poor individual to sell an organ one of compulsion rather than consent. Perhaps British Prime Minister Tony Blair described the evil of the sale of human organs best: "Where colonialists raped the land, the neo-colonialist surgeon steals from bodies."
Granted, by commercializing organ trading, there would be repercussions for societal growth and progress in general. Once again, the poor would be exploited for the betterment of the rich. However, in all brutal honesty, most of our modern society's mechanisms are tainted with this evil. The entire concept of globalization is really based on the concept of the poor getting poorer and the rich getting richer. The poor in Africa are trapped in a visual cycle, having to produce raw materials and crops and sell them to richer countries at extremely low prices in order to make whatever profit that can be made. Meanwhile, these rich countries reap the profits in terms of saving of expenditure.
What does this seek to illustrate? Simply put, there are plenty of precedents of exploitation of the poor that is, at worst, grudgingly accepted by society. The legalization of organ trading simply expresses this societal norm of exploitation. This is not an affirmation that this existing explotation of the poor in the framework of our society is correct; on the contrary, it is grossly wrong. However, from the point of this view of this comment, organ trading is compatible in today's society. In other words, it is an evil dictated by precedent, specifically that of the possible (as opposed to definite) exploitation of the poor.
There have been plenty of arguments over the entire concept of exchanging organs for commercial purposes. Although there has recently been a controversy over this issue in Singapore, other countries like Great Britain, Australia, certain states in USA as well as Japan have faced problems with regards to the banning of organ trading. However, it is sometimes important to take a step back and view the situation in an objective light. Organ trading does have a fundamental flaw, but it is one that is inherent in nearly all societal norms and stereotypes in today's world context.
One point in favour of organ trading is the entire principle of making one's own decision. Granted, even the most impoverished individual will not choose to donate their heart or lung and thus die. Neither would a surgeon be prepared to conduct such an operation. Yet, both a kidney and a piece of liver can be removed without significant detriment. It is, to some extent, even patronising to consider that the individual cannot make a reasoned decision to donate or sell his or her own organs. He or she should be granted his right to make his own choices. The family of a relative recently deceased should also to be able to choose to save the life of another and simultaneously receive some remuneration in terms of payment.
Another point in support of organ trading is the current existence of commercialization of similar products. A legitimate market in human organs would not be inconsistent with either public or private healthcare services. The transplant surgeon, the nursing staff and even the pharmaceutical companies producing the anti-reaction drugs receive payment for each operation performed. Why should the donor of the organs, arguably the most important actor in any transplant, not also receive remuneration? The United States already tolerates markets for blood, semen, human eggs, and surrogate wombs. Is there a moral difference between a heart or a lung and an ovum? It is remarkable that a lifesaving treatment should apparently have no financial value.
However, one point that most governments have been reiterating for the better part of the last 20-odd years (the USA was the first to pass the National Organ Transplantation Act in 1984, which prohibits the sale of human organs from either dead or living donors) is the fact that organ trading would result in a widening of the rich-poor gap. Organs involved in commercialization will only flow in one direction - from the Third World to the First. Healthy, but poor individuals in Asia and Africa are victim to scavenging organ merchants with deep pockets in developed nations. The financial rewards make the decision for a poor individual to sell an organ one of compulsion rather than consent. Perhaps British Prime Minister Tony Blair described the evil of the sale of human organs best: "Where colonialists raped the land, the neo-colonialist surgeon steals from bodies."
Granted, by commercializing organ trading, there would be repercussions for societal growth and progress in general. Once again, the poor would be exploited for the betterment of the rich. However, in all brutal honesty, most of our modern society's mechanisms are tainted with this evil. The entire concept of globalization is really based on the concept of the poor getting poorer and the rich getting richer. The poor in Africa are trapped in a visual cycle, having to produce raw materials and crops and sell them to richer countries at extremely low prices in order to make whatever profit that can be made. Meanwhile, these rich countries reap the profits in terms of saving of expenditure.
What does this seek to illustrate? Simply put, there are plenty of precedents of exploitation of the poor that is, at worst, grudgingly accepted by society. The legalization of organ trading simply expresses this societal norm of exploitation. This is not an affirmation that this existing explotation of the poor in the framework of our society is correct; on the contrary, it is grossly wrong. However, from the point of this view of this comment, organ trading is compatible in today's society. In other words, it is an evil dictated by precedent, specifically that of the possible (as opposed to definite) exploitation of the poor.
In conclusion, organ trading does have its downside of resulting in a widening of the rich-poor gap, but this evil is one that already exists in our societal structure. This allows the possible benefits, as well as the principles of organ trading (such as freedom of choice) to outweigh the limitations of organ trading.
