Critical Shortage of Organs Donors in the US
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Critical Shortage of Organs Donors in the US
There is a critical shortage of organs donors in the US. The solution to this problem is to allow poor people in the US and people from poor countries to sell some of their organs while they are still alive (e.g., kidney)? Agree or disagree?
I disagree with this because if the seller is not able to make an informed decision because of poverty and pressures due to lack of finances and the buyer is very sick and have urgent need to save his or her life. Then, both of them are compelled by circumstances and there is a lack of free will and the whole exercise is unethical and should not be justified. Various considerations need to be made when providing organs to potential recipients such as old age and irresponsible behavior such as heavy drinking (Drazen, 2005).
The free availability of organs will lower transplantation costs because if organs are offered for sale, there are many middlemen involved which make those organs very expensive to the buyer. The cost of transplantation is very high because the surgeons who carry out the exercise charge high fees. Therefore, only those people who donate the organs free of charge should be allowed to do so but not the poor and the needy in order to reduce the cost (Graham, Caren, Ross & Loscalzo, 2009).
The poor willing to sell the organ may be healthy and in the process of removing the organ, major surgical operations are involved which may be risky. The recipient who is very sick may develop complications during the surgical procedure. This implies that both the donor and recipient are vulnerable and in case of complications and they are both affected the money paid to the poor donor may not be of much help because there will be medical expenses to restore health back to normal. The populations of the poor countries will be at risk in future because the countries that are economically stable will use the power of their money to buy organs from poor people making them more vulnerable (Drazen, 2005).