94 lines
5.1 KiB
Standard ML
94 lines
5.1 KiB
Standard ML
Copyright 1983
|
||
NPG,Ltd.
|
||
SELLING HUMAN ORGANS
|
||
|
||
ISSUE: Should we allow human organs, such as kidneys, to be bought and sold
|
||
like ordinary commodities? (1) No, we should prohibit anyone from buying or
|
||
selling organs. (2) Yes, the introduction of market-based pricing would help
|
||
alleviate much human suffering and actually reduce the overall economic burden.
|
||
|
||
BACKGROUND: The issue of how to procure human organs covers everything from
|
||
hearts to bone pieces. But most of the controversy so far centers on the most
|
||
"popular" organ transplanted, the kidney. Each year more than 10,000 people
|
||
need new kidneys. But only about 5,000 of these people receive new kidneys,
|
||
mostly because of the shortage of available organs. In theory, there are
|
||
enough organs. Each year there are 20,000 deaths that create potentially
|
||
usable organs. When interviewed in ordinary circumstances, nearly 80% of
|
||
people say that they are willing to donate the organs of a loved one, should
|
||
they die in a fashion which makes them a potential donor. Yet, for reasons
|
||
subject to extensive and intense debate, that generalized willingness to donate
|
||
does not translate into an adequate supply of organs. To fill the gap,
|
||
patients are kept alive by use of expensive dialysis machines. Each year the
|
||
public spends $2 billion through Medicare to support dialysis, which comes to
|
||
about $30,000 per patient per year. In the near future the demand for
|
||
transplant operation likely will skyrocket. The FDA recently approved a new
|
||
drug -- cyclosporin -- which doubles the previous success rate. The demand for
|
||
transplantable organs thus will soar. To meet that anticipated demand several
|
||
firms have proposed establishing a system for locating people willing to donate
|
||
their organs for payment. The firms would then pass on that cost plus their
|
||
own overhead to the patient. One firm estimates that the cost of an organ such
|
||
as a kidney, procured through this system would be about $15,000.
|
||
|
||
POINT: These proposals for setting up "organs for sale" networks cannot be
|
||
tolerated; they must be immediately outlawed. We cannot allow people to sell
|
||
their own organs because that is not only repugnant to decency, it will create
|
||
gruesome blackmarket operations. Moreover, the proposals would exploit poor
|
||
foreigners by encouraging them to sell body parts to rich Americans. We do not
|
||
allow people to sell themselves into slavery; we cannot allow them to sell
|
||
their vital body parts. This goes beyond morality. Living donors of virtually
|
||
any organ increase their risk of death or disease. Moreover, it does not take
|
||
much imagination to conjure up horrible images of hard-hearted relatives of a
|
||
dead person selling the body for cash. With the vast number of potential but
|
||
unused donors, we should redouble our efforts to stimulate voluntary donors,
|
||
not set up "bodyshops."
|
||
|
||
COUNTERPOINT: We should not only permit but encourage private firms to
|
||
locate organs for donation. Provided that he does not kill himself, a person's
|
||
body is his own to do with it as he wants. As a matter of fundamental
|
||
principle, government must not be allowed to tell a person how to use his or
|
||
her body. The proposed private donor systems are not fundamentally different
|
||
from firms that pay for blood donations. Few would argue that these
|
||
profit-making operations do not help to supply vital blood products. And yet
|
||
when originally started, the donation-for-pay stimulated intense debate. Now
|
||
we can see that the original controversy proved vastly overblown. A careful
|
||
examination of the economics will show that the cost to the patient and the
|
||
public to purchase organs is far less a burden than that which they bear today.
|
||
According to current estimates, the cost of a purchased kidney would be less
|
||
than the cost of six months on dialysis machine and subject many patients to
|
||
far less agony. And, costs aside, many people today die for lack of donors;
|
||
these lives would be saved if we would take steps to increase the supply of
|
||
available organs.
|
||
|
||
|
||
QUESTIONS:
|
||
|
||
o If organ sales are allowed, how would you put a price on the value of a
|
||
human organ?
|
||
|
||
o If organ sales are allowed should there be mechanism, perhaps through
|
||
insurance or government assistance, that allows all people to obtain organs
|
||
regardless of their financial means?
|
||
|
||
o Would this issue be less controversial if the organ seller were terminally
|
||
ill?
|
||
|
||
o Would it be immoral for a person to sell his organs for implant in
|
||
strangers?
|
||
|
||
o Is it better to keep a person on an artificial organ than to give them a
|
||
transplant from an organ bought from a donor?
|
||
|
||
|
||
REFERENCES:
|
||
FDA Approves Drug to Aid Organ Transplants, John Wilke, The
|
||
Washington Post, September 3, 1983, p.A1
|
||
Va. Doctor Plans Company to Arrange Sale of Human Kidneys,
|
||
Margaret Engel, The Washington Post, September 19, 1983, p.A9
|
||
Doctors Decry Plan to Buy, Sell Kidneys, Judie Glave,
|
||
Associated Press, The Washington Post, September 24, 1983
|
||
|
||
(Note: Please leave your thoughts -- message or uploaded comments -- on this
|
||
issue on Tom Mack's RBBS, The Second Ring --- (703) 759-5049. Please address
|
||
them to Terry Steichen of New Perspectives Group, Ltd.)
|
||
|
||
|