Cause and Effect: Organ Trade/Sales Why People do it?

Corrina PlascenciaENG-1062016 June 2019 Professor Amberly Neese Cause and Effect: Organ Trade/Sales Why People do it? Ever since the inception of the process of organ donation, an ever going debate about whether organs should be allowed to be sold or not has started. This issue came about from the unexpected rise of demand for organs, despite the consistent low supply of such. As according to Caplan (2014), such tremendous gap between the demand and supply for organs, has led to the “core ethical challenge for transplant-rationing”. On the one hand of the debate, proponents of the act of selling organs, believe that any body parts that a person receives should be returned with an equal, if not greater compensation. Aside from this utilitarian way of viewing organ donation, the proponents also think that selling organs is not only natural, but would also help save the lives of others by helping alleviate the significant difference between the demand and supply for human body parts. In other words, this practice could save thousands of lives at a ‘compensated risk’ for the donors CITATION Sch16 \l 1033 (Scheper-Hughes, 2016). On the other hand, opponents of this idea banks their argument against organ transplant on the same idea of ‘risks’. They believe that the risks of selling outweigh the benefits for a number of reason. Such arguments ranges from the mere risks inflicted upon the donor who is driven by pecuniary interests and up to syndicated groups abducting people to get their organs and sell it illegally. In this paper, the cause and effect of Organ Trade or Sales would be discussed in greater detail. This includes the economic and social factors that pushes individual to engage in this risky business. All in all, the author believes that by understanding the cause and effect of such acts, illegal organ donation could be prevented while organ donations could be given more dynamic regulations that would mitigate the risks for both the donor and donee. Economic Causes of Organ Trade One of the main causes of organ trade or sales is the economic factors in the society. On the one hand, there are a lot of people living in poverty, who are struggling to make a living. This prompts these individuals to do things that are inherently risky, as long as they could provide food, shelter and sustenance for their family CITATION Hel18 \l 1033 (Held, McCormick, Chertow, Peters, & Roberts, 2018). On the other hand, there are market forces that affect this practice, such as the law of demand and supply. Specifically, individuals who have the means of purchasing ‘body parts’ are looking for organs that are essential for their survival, while stringent regulations for donating organs lessen supply. In other words, the combination of poverty among the masses, as well as the market forces act as the cause by which people engage in organ sales (Boyer, 2012). In effect, these economic causes translate to different issues and regulations in the society. For one, the consideration of economic factors has prompted syndicates and other criminal groups to engage in atrocious actions, such as kidnapping individuals and ‘harvesting’ their organs. This is much more apparent in developing countries where the prices of organs are hi...