Ethical Issues Of Bioprinting

Although it may seem that exactly the same concerns on bioethics have already been faced when debating tissue engineering or stem cell research, bioprinting introduces new ethical and policy challenges. It is important to take them into consideration, given the rapid development of this technology and its huge potential for saving lives. The fact that indeed, both tissue engineering and bioprinting share some of the issues, such as the source and donation of cells, or the processes of review and approval of a tissue engineered product, other problems hold to be either unique or much more amplified in complexity. These ethical and policy concerns that will particularly arise at the technological maturity of bioprinting will be described in

This issue is related to the main principle driving organ transplantation, namely altruism. On one hand, a person may more likely become a donor to help his relative, on the other, however, it may be argued that it is unfair, as it favors certain persons by placing them on top of the waiting list. Despite the contentious matter related to the cells’ source, it is important to notice that the problem of altruistic donation would be nonexistent if bioprinting reached its technological maturity and organs could be printed on demand from a patient’s own

Would restricting healthy persons from acquiring biofabricated products be seen as deprivation of individual rights? Or how sick would a person have to be to be allowed to have his organ replaced? How many replacements of organs of tissues would be possible? As in the case of sports, where performance enhanced methods are used, this problem could also be present in bioprinting, which could advance human capabilities also beyond what is natural. Furthermore, persons could use bioprinted products to exchange their natural, less aesthetic body parts, taking plastic surgery to a completely brand new