Market For Human Organs

Research papers on the market for human organs can discuss the medical, ethical or legal aspects of selling human organs. Since all the work that Paper Masters does is custom written, your project on human organs can be specifically written to cover the topic you need.

Currently in the United States, there are many individuals awaiting an organ donation. Often, these donations provide continued life for the recipient, without which the recipient would die. However, there is a shortage of individuals willing to donate. The assignment is to investigate the market for human organs.

1. Briefly describe the system currently in place in the United States to provide for human organ transplants.
2. Argue whether or not a market system should apply to human organ parts, using an informed economic opinion, while also incorporating ethical concepts.
3. You must use the credible sources for the assignment (books or journal articles only).

This study examines contrasting views on the topic of the commerce of human organs. It demonstrates that strong opinions are being expressed both in support of and against legally allowing commercial interests to shape how people exchange organs for transplantation. The study also shows that advocates of both of these diametrically opposed positions cast themselves as heroic defenders and champions of a superior ethical cause. Unfortunately, such views suggest that it will be exceptionally difficult for society to reach a satisfactory compromise position on this increasingly critical issue, or to develop and implement acceptable policy approaches for addressing it.

As such, this examination of contrasting views on the commerce of human organs indicates that it will be extremely difficult challenge for society to achieve an acceptable compromise on this increasingly important and controversial issue. With fervent opinions being articulated on both sides of a deepening divide, and with proponents of both entirely opposed viewpoints positioning themselves as valiant guardians of and crusaders for a higher moral cause, it is unlikely that society will soon be able to devise and execute satisfactory, workable, cost-effective policies for addressing the persistent and growing shortage of organs. Indeed, one might imagine that if the waiting lists continue to grow, the debate over the commerce of organs is likely to approach the fevered pitch of the abortion wars. An especially disturbing thought is that, in the absence of legislative change on the issue, and in an atmosphere in which leading commentators endorse the commerce of organs as an ethically superior choice, the effect of ongoing prohibitions would be similar to the impact of abortion prohibitions in an earlier era: widespread violation of the law by desperate patients and professionals eager to lend assistance-all occurring under secretive conditions that fail to guarantee the best outcomes. Whatever one's position on the matter, clearly all efforts must be made to avoid such a reality.

Growing attention to the question of permitting commerce in human organs is due to significant improvements in transplantation techniques and to large and increasing shortfalls in the numbers of donated organs relative to the numbers of organs demanded for transplant. Thanks to advancements in medical technologies, the number of organ donations and the number transplantation operations have been increasing at rapid rates in recent years. Unfortunately, however, the waiting lists for organs have lengthened at even faster rates.

• Between 1990 and 1996 alone the number of people awaiting liver transplants increased by more than 500 percent despite appreciable growth in the number of donors and in the number of transplant operations.
• Only about 20,000 of the approximately 80,000 people who require organ transplants each year receive the organs that they need.
• At any given moment some 68,000 Americans are awaiting an organ for transplantation .
• A new name is added to a waiting list at an average of once every sixteen minutes.
• While in 1992 there were approximately 19,000 people awaiting kidney transplants, by 2001 that number had risen to almost 49,000.
  

Phadke and Anandh (2002) maintain that as the lists of patients awaiting transplantation increase, "a subtle but noticeable shift" is occurring, in which society increasingly accepts the notion of human organs as commodities that might be commercially exchanged. Indeed, in countries such as India, although commercial transplantation is officially prohibited, upwards of 60 percent of donated kidneys are believed to be from live donors who receive payment for their organs. Kuczewski (2002) also suggests that longer lists of increasingly desperate patients awaiting organs have led to situations in which the majority of ethicists and healthcare professionals now support the commerce of human organs, particularly when these organs are recovered after death. Similarly, Kahn and Research by Paper Masters notes that recent commentaries in the New York Times and the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal point to an apparently steadily growing willingness to accept a market solution to the shortage of organs for transplantation, again with support especially strong for deceased donation. Indeed, the one major exception to the growing acceptance of a commercial approach concerns the sale of organs from living donors in the lower-income countries to patients from the wealthy nations. Support for allowing the commerce of human organs, at least in certain, carefully prescribed situations, has generally been grounded in the notion that such a policy would afford the most cost-effective and ethical means of overcoming a large and growing shortage of organs that are needed to save the lives of other humans. The sale of organs after death in particular is viewed as an almost negligible sacrifice from which priceless benefits might be reaped. For instance, Clay and Block (2002) begin their plea for commercialization with the statement that: "Every year thousands of men, women and children needlessly suffer and die because of a law, simple legislative enactment that could easily be changed" (p. 228). While the authors commend the organs that come from those who donate their organs as a "gift to humanity" and do not receive any compensation for their generous acts, they argue that if individuals had economic incentives to contribute their body parts, the organ shortage could more readily be solved than with current policy.