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Legalize for the Greater Good Every day, numerous people across the world stop their lives for four hours to get hooked up to a dialysis machine at a hospital nearby. This machine helps to remove harmful wastes, toxins, excess salt, and water from their body because unfortunately their body cannot do so for them. These people wait on a list until they can one day receive a kidney transplant because kidney failure has resulted in their body not being able to clean their blood properly.
More than 300,000 Americans have kidney allure and use dialysis daily and the statistics are only continuing to grow. I am going to argue that the best to solve this problem is to legalize the regulated sale of organs to better society as a whole. Organ sales should be legalized for two reasons: greater good of the society and to avoid exploitation of the poor as selling an organ could be the best option for the poor to make money. I firmly believe that organ sales should be legalized and I will explain the many arguments I have listed above.
First off, the legalization of organ sales should be done only in the idea of teetering the society and the economy as a whole. This is based off of the utilitarian view that the extent of a good action is determined by the amount of happiness that can be produced. If organ sales are legalized the society would better because there would be more lives saved from the accessibility of the organs necessary. The statistics of the amount of people across the world that need organ transplants is horrendous however, if organ sales become legal the waiting list for transplants will diminish and eventually cease to exist.
Some countries are evaluating the idea of organ sales, and some countries such as Iran has even made organ sales legal. Since Iran made the selling of organs legal, there has been no waiting list for kidney transplants since 2011. It has also been proven that live organ donations have a lower rejection rate than those from a cadaver donor and the risk for live donors is low. This is an example of how organ sales can better the good of our society because instead of people dying from not receiving an organ, people will live because the organs will be accessible.
In this scenario, the good of saving lives out-weighs the bad f the selling of organs. Another utilitarian argument is that donating and selling the argument is essentially the same thing however the donor receives a greater good and happiness in one situation than in the other. If the donor donates his or her organ without receiving any sort of compensation they leave only with the idea that they have helped someone and saved their life.
However, in the other situation where the donor receives a compensation for donating their organ, the donor then leaves knowing not only that they helped someone, but they also receive a compensation to cake them happy but to also encourage others to donate their organs as well. Therefore, the idea of having a waiting list will slowly diminish. The only way to better the economy as a whole would also be supported by the rich who would be spending money to receive an organ. Exploitation is an influential or manipulative act cause by to superior knowledge or power.
It normally occurs when a profit is involved and the profit is the incentive. Exploitation of the poor for organ sales could occur because the poor would be selling their organs at a lower price below market value be. The rich are able to use the Poor’s lack of knowledge and need for money to their advantage. However, if organ sales were to be the best option for the poor, this is then in no way the exploitation of the poor because the poor have a chance to better their lives. They are in a sense given a gift of a great sum of money that they had no other way of receiving.
If a person is in poverty and is willing to give up their kidney or another organ for money, then they should be able to do so if it is their desire. Not to mention, if organs were to be sold the price would have to be high insuring a higher insemination rate for the poor donor; and although the prices of an organ would be high, rich patients would be interested because it would still be cheaper than dialysis. It is necessary to remember that the poor donor chose this option meaning all other alternatives are not feasible to them.
By being able to sell organs, the poor receive a gift and create happiness for themselves as well as someone else because they are saving a person’s life. Essentially exploitation of the poor can then be protected because the only way to remove poverty is to provide them with what is unattainable for them: money. In this sense, two goods are created and a form of happiness exists. Autonomy normally refers to a person being able to live their life according to their own personal desire.
A person is in a state of self-governing and that they act on their free will. The donor should be able to make their own decisions and be able to do what they want with their body, as long as it doesn’t cause harm to others. The idea of autonomy and organ sales deals good actions out weighing the those actions that could be bad. Autonomy supports that if a patient is willing to donate an organ, then let them. The regulation of organ sales is absolutely necessary in order to reach the moral goals of increased happiness and to do so without exploitation.
However, if a the market of organ sales is regulated, then that provides even more of an incentive to legalize the sales of organs. If the market is regulated less harm will come because the operations to perform transplants and selling organs on the black market would no longer exist anymore. The regulation would be able to provide a clean operating room along with tests done on the donor to insure that they are healthy to not only vive up the kidney but that they also don’t have any diseases that could harm the person who is receiving the transplant.
Regulating the market also helps to insure that in countries were women and children are looked upon as not having rights or are in a sense chattel, that they aren’t being taken advantage of or that their organs are being sold illegally. The organ selling market would be regulated by a group of qualified medical professionals and a staff to ensure an order upon who receives the organ and when. They will also provide all safety precautions for the transplant.
The exultation of the market essentially creates a good for the society in not only protecting women and children as well as providing safe and adequate transplant care for society as a whole. In many circumstances does the idea of altruism appear when discussing the legalization of organ sales. An example that shows up often is the idea if there is really a difference between a family member donating their organ to another family member in need, or selling an organ to pay for an operation for that same family member that is in need.
Another is what difference does the unfairness of the rich only being able to buy organs when only the rich can support private medicine. I personally see no difference between any of these situations and strongly believe that along the lines of altruism that the people are only thinking of others instead of themselves and in these cases altruism does not create distinctions between donors and vendors and the rich or poor.
In conclusion, it is very necessary that regulated organ sales are legalized because of the two reasons provided above: for the greater good of society and to provide the poor with an option to make money. With in all of the following examples it is impolitely clear that the good out ways the bad in every scenario and not only is society benefited as a whole, but the economy is also supported.
In today’s society almost everything is involved in a buying and selling market and the demand for organs are high. People sell everything including plasma, blood, sperm and eggs and no negative remarks are made on those sales. If there is no negative action or harm from selling human organs, then people should be able to sell them. It is off utilitarian moral to provide and create good for others and if selling organs does that, then by all meaner they should be sold.