Organ Donation Should Be Mandatory Essay

Is there any moral dilemma in making the provision of a means of survival for those in need mandatory? In the world at any given time there are countless individuals whose organs are failing them to the point of threatening their lives. In the world at any given time there are also countless healthy individuals and individuals taking their last breath, who possess what those aforementioned individuals need to survive. Given this truth, we would argue that any recantations about organ donation do not outweigh the proponents of organ donation. We propose that organ donation should be mandatory upon the death of an individual, and should be considered on a situational basis in cases where the donor is a living donor. Those who are against
Munjal et. al. poignantly assert that: “as we debate whether uDCDD (uncontrolled donation after circulatory donation of death) donors are still alive, living donors and patients in need of transplants are dying, and yet no patient whose heart has stopped unexpectedly, as opposed to under controlled circumstances, may become a donor. We find this counterintuitive state of affairs incomprehensible and the result to be a serious disservice to the public understanding of donation and transplantation” (2013). Regarding the subject of organ donation, we must consider that the beneficent act of sacrificing a fraction of the physical self for the survival of another is for the greater good. Considering the latter, if a living person can voluntarily endure the pain of organ donation – as they do – then surely the merit of extracting from an inanimate object (a dead body) should be done without question for the life of another. Also, if it were mandatory that organs from the deceased be made viable for transplant, then there would be less need for living
Well, there are many, but perhaps the best argument is sheer statistics. Keatings and Smith (2010) state that “the supply of donor organs has not kept pace with the growing need” which presents a real problem. Donor organs represent lives; lack of donor organs represents possible deaths. Wilkinson and Savulescu (2012) acknowledge that methods of increasing the number of solid organs for transplant “conflict with ethical norms governing transplantation to varying degrees” but make the point that “the cost of preserving those norms will be the death or ongoing morbidity of many individuals.” These authors use statistics to support their claim, citing, firstly, that in the last 50 years, solid organ transplantation has extended and improved the quality of life of hundreds of thousands of patients with organ failure [however] there are more than 100,000 patients on the waiting list for a deceased donor organ in the US: in 2007, 18 patients per day died on waiting lists for transplants. In the UK, 450 patients per year die because of a