Is It Worth It?Just in the United States, 84,000 men, women and children are waiting for an organ transplant. With the list continuing to grow, doctors are trying to figure out a way to get more organs donated. With such a high demand for organs, it’s not surprising that organ sales have become its own market. Which then raises the question, should consensual organ donation be legal? What that means is that a person has the right to sell their own organs or buy an organ, from anywhere in the world, for themselves. Just imagine if your child needed a kidney, but was on the bottom of the list. You receive an offer for a kidney that someone was trying to sell. You could take the kidney, and save your child. But you are risking Federal Prison if you get caught smuggling it into the country. If we were able to legalize organ selling, we wouldn’t need to worry about having a long list of needed transplants. In order to lessen the ever-growing list of needed organ transplants, we must make consensual organ selling legal.
The majority of organ selling occurs in developing countries with high poverty rates. In many countries like Egypt, India and Brazil, organ selling is illegal. In India, many people use their organs for collateral for money collectors. The poverty-stricken people have no choice but to sell their bodies. In an article “Illegal Organ Trafficking Poses a Global Problem.” It stated that “Most sellers would say ‘I’d do it again. I have a family to support. What choice do I have?” (Cholia). Even though the patients are paid between $2000 and $6000, there is no follow-up check or medication to help with the pain and infections that may set in. In Brazil, the sellers aren’t just unemployed people who can’t find work, but workers who are being exploited by bosses or wealthier people. In an interview, Nancy Scheper-Hughes stated that, “Exchanges were taking place between employers and employees or wealthy people and their domestic workers, in which lower status individuals ‘donated’ their kidneys in return for secure employment, housing or other basic needs.” The wealthy people use their money to bribe poor people to risk their lives with infections or any medical issues that could happen. In 2002, U.S. doctors performed 24,900 organ transplants that saved lives. But for every person taken off the waiting list, two more were added. If organ selling is continuing to be illegal, the black market would still continue to trade organs to people who are becoming desperate. With organ selling being illegal, it will cause people to reach out and find underground clinics. But having people go under in a not-real clinic is extremely dangerous. In National Geographic, it stated that “Having lost one kidney, donors are more at risk for any problem that could later affect their remaining kidney. Also, transplant operations themselves can be dangerous or fatal-particularly when out in clandestine and illegal facilities.” (Handwerk) Another issue that is similar to this is the abortion bill. If it becomes illegal, then seedy clinics will pop-up that women have to go to instead of a clean clinic with trained doctors. One person who would agree with legalizing both of these issues in John Stuart Mill. He is a long-term utilitarian, which means that Mills wants to maximize total benefits and reduce the suffering in the long run. He had a philosophy called the “Harm Principle” which was that you should have total control over your body and be able to do whatever you’d like as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else. In a Forbes Magazine article titled “Selling Your Organs: Should It Be Legal? Do You Own Yourself?” The author said, “Indeed the oath to do no harm certainly is ethically and morally important to doctors. But if by donating a kidney, a destitute person can not only help the recipient, but also use the proceeds to start a business and thereby lift himself out of poverty, isn’t it a win-win?” Iran is one of the only countries where selling organs is legal. They have many ways to control the selling and purchasing of kidneys; the Charity Association of the Support of Kidney Patients (CASKP) and Charity Foundation for Special Dieses (CFSD). Both of these non-profits have many rules and regulations to control the trade. One rule is that physicians are able to give a medical assessment of the patients to make sure that it will be a compatible trade. “The CASKP’s director, Mostafa Ghassemi, said ‘In 2010, a total of 2285 kidney transplants took place in the country, of which 1690 kidneys were supplied from volunteers and 595 from those clinically brain-dead,” (Dagres). Even though that last number was unnerving, Iran hasn’t had an organ waiting list since 1999. So to make this legal in the U.S, we need to take into consideration of the tenth amendment. It states that the government is only a loud to do things that the constitution granted. Anything that isn’t listed, is left to the decision of the state and its people. So determine if we are going to legalize organ selling, we need each state to vote yes or no on it. This would be handled just how we are handling the gay rights and abortion rights. If we had the ability to legalize organ selling, then we would be saving more lives and erasing the transplant waiting list. |
Artist StatementMy political campaign poster represents my perspective of legalizing organ selling, which means that you can buy (or sell) an organ, if you need one. In my art piece, I placed it in a cemetery, but instead of names and dates written on the gravestones, I put what the person had done. For example I did ‘Organ Donor’ and ‘Needed a Heart’, ect. There were different shapes and sizes of gravestones to represent different levels of income. That means that anyone could need an organ, no matter what the social status is. I just did this in black pen so that it would look more pulled together and simple. I’m pretty proud of my political cartoon because I had had some problems trying to solidify my idea and I finally was struck by inspiration that made me create my project. I did all the work in pen, and it is a very simple idea but it gets my point across on my global issue.
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