Argumentive essay on the sell and donation of human organs

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Organs as a Gift and a Form of Business
The field of medicine has been continuously working towards achieving goals for humanity. The goals of this field mainly involve pain relief, maintenance, and promotion of good health, disease prevention, and overall improvement of a patient’s quality of life (Callahan, 1998). One of the advancements in the modernization of the practice of medicine is organ transplantation, which now opened and made way for organ selling and donation. I will argue in this paper that while many lives will benefit from the selling and donation of organs, it will still not outweigh the ethical issues and problems that it will be bringing to a human person and the community.
Organ transplantation is necessary for those patients who are experiencing organ failure or those who have damaged an organ due to trauma or disease. This is considered as one of the greatest advancements in the field of medicine especially in improving and prolonging the lives of those who are experiencing problems with one system only but is otherwise healthy. The procedure involves the acquisition of a donor organ from another human body to be removed and transferred to the recipient’s body (“Human Organ Transplantation”, 2013). The most in-demand of the organs is the kidney, followed by the liver, and the heart, respectively (Abouna, 2003). Organ donations can come from both living beings and cadavers, then a process of checking the compatibility of the organ to its receiver is done, to make sure that the donated organs will be allocated to the best candidate.
There are policies regarding the donation and acquisition of organs for transplant, because of the widespread demand for organs worldwide. The only country where organ selling and buying is legal is in Iran, while all the other countries do not allow the business to take place between an organ seller and recipient (Ahmad & Iftikhar, 2016). The countries where it is illegal to sell human organs depend on altruistic donations, wherein the donor freely decides to donate anonymously with no intended recipient. This system of organ donation does not help a lot in bridging the gap between the number of names on the waitlist to the number of donors, which still results in the unethical practice of organ selling and donating.
The scarcity of organ donations from altruistic means led to the presence of illegal transactions of organ selling and buying in black markets. Buying and selling organs is beneficial for the patients and recipients which will increase the number of organ donations but this kind of business promotes the exploitation of the poor who require money. Aside from this, it also tends to increase crime rates because the recruitment of donors is done by force, coercion, fraud, kidnapping, and the likes for the removal of their organs. These countries that are most involved are Mexico, China, India, United States, Kosovo, South Africa, and Israel, playing different roles, whether as the origin or destination country, in organ trafficking (Bowden, 2013). It has become a growing danger, especially to vulnerable ones like children and women, that is fueled by greed instead of being an act of charity and goodness.
Another ethical issue with the buying and selling of human organs is disrespect toward the dignity of humanity. Dignity as defined by Immanuel Kant, an influential philosopher, is something “beyond price” or something of value that has no equivalent (Schulman, 2009). With this definition, putting a price on the organs even if it is not forced would be a violation of the human dignity that a person innately possesses. This ethical concept as discussed by Kant values the consent and authority of a person towards oneself which should not be desecrated by others and the person himself. The usage of a person’s body part for another also promotes the notion of inequality in human worth and value, and this goes against the innate dignity that a person has. In addition to this, the buying and selling of human organs promotes this as a form of business. Commodification, or in a form of a gift, or maybe something in between, subjects the human person to place the control of his own body in the hands of another and also increasing the risk of harm and unwanted complications during the harvesting itself.
A common argument as to why it is not a good idea to allow buying and selling of human organs in the market is that it will affect the people in poverty more. There will be some kind of exploitation due to the need of the people to earn money for their daily necessities, that an organ transaction can temporarily resolve. The differences in the effect that the social classes will experience with this issue further proves that there is an ethical issue at hand, even though the poor people would receive some kind ...