BioEthics

869 Words2 Pages

As technology advances and medical procedures and research expand, new treatments and new conflicts are created. A problem that has always plagued medical science is failing organs. As of today, organ failure is impossible to reverse and the only solution is replacement. There is a massive demand for healthy organs and with this demand comes the issue of bioethics. The issue of bioethics has become so prevalent it has also arisen in popular culture. The best example of this being the movie Repo! The Genetic Opera¸ which takes place in the future, years after an epidemic of organ failure wreaked havoc on the population of man. During this time a “savior” arose in the form of Rotti Largo who developed the Bio-Tech Company GeneCo. GeneCo provides organ transplants and surgeries for a fee. This exchange worked fine in the beginning but organ transplants and surgeries suddenly became all the rage for cosmetic reasons rather than health reasons and that’s when greed kicked in. When a patient could not pay for his or her surgeries or organs a repo man from GeneCo would come and repossess the organs, which would then be sold again to someone else. This film is wracked with issues regarding bioethics. GeneCo is arguable an immoral company despite the fact that it provides the means to help people. That good will is easily cancelled out by the brutal repossessions led by the repo men and the ridiculous sums of money Rotti Largo requires for procedures. This relates remarkably to current events and future prospects. Currently bioethics in the realm of organ donation has become a hot topic. In the United States organs cannot be legally be sold or bought (Hanto), thus opening up a large black market for organs, and also making it difficult f... ... middle of paper ... ...ant to live forever. They have expiration dates, and when one messes with said expirations dates only short term benefits will occur. In the long term problems will become very prominent. Whatever happened to the concept of natural selection? Natural selection weeds out the weak and also the weak traits associated with them. It keeps the gene pool strong, and the recipients thriving. Organ donation and the creation of new healthy organs are good things as long as used properly, but when used in a way to search for immortality or in a way that promotes greed, it causes more harm than good. Works Cited Hanto, Douglas W. “Ethical Challenges Posed by the Solicitation of Deceased and Living Organ Donors.” The New England Journal of Medicine. 8 Mar. 2007: 1062. eLibrary. Web. 25 Jan. 2010. Repo! The Genetic Opera. Dir. Darren Lynn Bousman. 2008. Lionsgate, 2009. DVD.

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