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The numbers grow on a daily basis and every year, thousands of Americans are dying because of the inability to get the life-saving organs in which they require to survive (Shave, 2008). Although an answer of legalizing the sale of organs may seem like a plausible solution, there are a magnitude of issues that show this may not be such a good idea. By legalizing the sale of Organs, we run the risk of increasing black market revenue and major exploitation of the poor.
This provides availability for more unsafe practices and distribution of organs in an uncontrolled environment. In our current age, we have over one hundred thousand individuals waiting for a transplant with only less than fifteen thousand donors (OPT, 2014). Although legalization of organs may seem reasonable, I do not think it would be a wise choice because of exploitation, morals and the large contribution it would make to support the black market distribution of organs.
Becoming an organ donor and compensation for organs are two separate cases in which one is deceased and can no longer use their organs and where one living being is compensated for organs in which they may sibyl need to survive at a later date. The black market has had no issues in delivering services still to those desperate for organs to save their loved ones (Meeker, 2007).
In 2003 an illegal kidney-procurement network was uncovered in Africa where an operation would provide the donor with six thousand dollars and middlemen were able to sell the organs for as much as one-hundred thousand dollars (Shave, 2008). In the United States, the black market for human tissue usually involves those that are about to be cremated. Falsified documents are provided and he tissue can then be sold to a research facility where infectious, diseased organs are sold by a claim that alters the cause of death or health history.
In some of these trades, compensation is not even rewarded but the donor waking up in a bath tub covered in blood and ice cubes with a missing organ. Because of the desperate call to help a family member and the waiting list being so high, many Americans turn to the black market in order to get what they need. The individual may contact someone they know such as the “Body snatchers” and a worker may be misled thinking they eave a Job but are locked into a facility with an operating room where their cadavers can provide tissue for up to 90 patients (Shave, 2007).
In a controlled environment, a heart procedure/operation can cost one-hundred thousand dollars, kidney operations from three thousand and the cost of the organ is not included (Forbes, 2007). Much of the upper-class individuals will have no issue providing these funds however, the lower class may struggle with figures that high. This brings up the criteria of exploitation amongst the lower class. The term exploitation can be defined s “Use or utilization, especially for profit” (Exploitation, 2014).
The market for organ sales may be the hardest to Justify and compensation to the lower class living individuals for their organs is exploiting and in fact would better support an argument for increasing aid to the needy (Shave, 2008). The lower class simply cannot afford multiple hundred thousands of dollars for a transplant which leaves those able to receive being from a higher class (Forbes, 2007). The legalization of organs sales will not only increase traffic in the black market, but exploit the poor. Both options simply lack ethics and to put a price on a human, borderlines many limitations of morality.
One could say that legalization would decrease sales and provide a safer environment for transplants however, if we compare the drug market and the legalization of marijuana with the black market, we see revenues sky rocketing for the illegal distribution of marijuana not prescribed and opens the door for those distributing illegally, to do it in a more outside manor making it easier, quicker and adding to the price off mind-altering substance. The sales of human organs for compensation should not be legalized, it will increase black market profit and availability and exploit the poor.
A day worker in India was looking for day wages when he agreed to do construction work for four dollars an hour. Him, along with others were then held at gunpoint for several days and eventually taken to a hidden operating room where he and the two others remain unconscious by drugs and when they awoke, their kidneys had been removed (Shave, 2008). By legalizing organ sales, we support circumstances like these because we are taking their immoral actions ND brutality and making it legal to do so.
By making organ sales legal, many could be misguided into faulty operations such as these and live on life support for the remaining number of years. Imagine how much easier it would be to produce fraudulent papers and faulty medical records in order to please the payer (Shave, 2007). By making organ sales legal, we make these situations more convenient for the desperate and in some cases could be the end of thousands of lives because the black market will always be cheaper and will always be available. It is the poor person who sells, the rich who buy and Dry.
Delimitation of the Wall Street Journal mentions that “Payments eventually result in the exploitation of the individual,” (Shuttlecocks, 2001). A condition can only be exploitive if the victim is ill- informed, manipulated or coerced into believing something other than what is present (Wilkinson, 2011). The sale of Organs is pretty straight forward but if we look in terms of a struggling economy, the individual’s decision is highly influenced and therefore the situation is being manipulated. Such actions could also include the compensation being considerably low in contrast to the profit.
Such cases like in South Africa, individuals are compensated anywhere from six hundred to eight hundred dollars and those same organs are sold for over one-hundred thousand (Shave, 2008). Both criteria could bring arguments to consider like legalizing it would provide for safer facilities to do transplants and also, provide income for the poor. But is money more important than a life? More facilities means more tax dollars and if this means safer alternatives, than why are some of these facilities distributing illegally when it is illegal? If they find a way to do it now, imagine how much easier ND accessible it would be to the black market.
Yes, legalizing organs sales may decrease the numbers on the waiting list, but what about other methods such as providing campaigns of awareness for more to become organ donors? As of today, only one third of the population is an organ donor (OPT, 2014). If every person became an organ donor this would not only eliminate numbers on the waiting list, but possibly even produce an abundance of organs that may be used later. Considering one hundred and fifty thousand people die a day, it would only take one ay to eliminate the waiting list of one hundred and twenty thousand (Wick.
NODE, 2014). Legalizing organ sales has far more negative effects than that which would actually help the American people. The black market will increase revenue and grow their practices all-the-while exploiting the lower class and providing more health concerns for those who are desperate. What’s at stake? Power, control and revenue. Although many would say that the legalization would decrease numbers which may hold truth, there are multiple different actions which can benefit the country that will to promote immoral behavior and unethical compensation for a living being.