Pros And Cons Of Organ Transplantation

Finding Common Ground

Organ Transplantation is a life-saving method that has become a normal part of daily conversation in the twenty first century. Most anyone you ask has known or known of someone who has qualified to be put on the transplant list in order to save their life, and many know someone who is successfully living and thriving with a donated organ. Often times these organs come from an anonymous donor that has met a fateful tragedy. But there are certain organs that can be donated from a living donor. While organ donation and transplantation has been proven to save lives as far back as the early 1800’s and many forward strides have been made over the past almost two centuries, it has not come without price tags, controversy

The proposal includes “tax rebates, deductions for transplant related hospital fees, medical insurance, tuition waivers for donor’s family members, or deduction of burial fees for people who donated in death.”(Satel, "Yuan a Kidney?") All of this was to make it more attractive for potential donors and their families to come out of the dark shadows to make their decisions. But unfortunately, in organ donation, as well many other human trafficking trades, the attempt to snuff them out only drives it further into darkness underground. Satel passionately communicates that she feels the practice of legally paying for organs is not the same as the “opportunistic human cannibalism” nor a “filthy business in the same subcategory as the sex trade and child pornography”. She goes further to say that while most of the world feels “Altruism [gift of life donation] is the bioethical foundation [of obtaining organs], and it should not give rise to financial gain”(Satel,"Yuan a Kidney?"), her

In their 2003 publication entitled “Financial Incentives for Organ Donation”, the foundation clearly spells out their points and opinions on the subject. They waste no time delivering their stance in the article which opens with the following statement, “The National Kidney Foundation opposes all efforts to legalize payments for human organs for use in transplantation and urges the Federal Government to retain the prohibition against the purchase of organs that is codified in Title III of the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984.” ("Financial Incentives for Organ Donation.") The foundation feels that any compensation for organ donation, monetary or otherwise, is inconsistent with our values we hold to as a society, and that it would serve to devalue the lives it would save. ("Financial Incentives for Organ Donation.") The article goes on to state that in addition to the moral and ethical questions this would raise, there would be a certain effect on the socio-economically underprivileged in the United States, and this in itself raises yet another conflict, as the foundation maintains that “since the economically disadvantaged have shown to be less likely to be organ transplant candidates, financial incentives for organ donation could be characterized as exploitation.” ("Financial Incentives for Organ Donation.") The National Kidney Foundation continues to hammer away at