Sale of organs a complicated issue

By Lindy Rider

Dawgnet Guest Columnist

March 28, 2005

Nowadays, everything can be found for sale on eBay with a few exceptions. One of these exceptions is human organs, which can instead be found for sale on the black market. The sale of human organs is presently illegal, although donating them as a "gift of life" is legally acceptable. Why is it that people can give their organs away but not be compensated for their generosity?

This is the question I hoped to answer when I began my research. I asked professionals for their opinions and theories based on their backgrounds, as well as students for their personal opinions regarding the legalization of buying and selling of human organs.

Richard McGowan, a Butler University lecturer in Philosophy and Religion, said that the body should not be treated as property and sold off in parts.

"Gilbert Meilaender, a member of the President's Bioethics Council, would say a society that treats the body as a means to somebody else's end is a society that cheapens life and that turns the body into property and ultimately that debases human existence," McGowan said. "I would argue that our culture has a tendency to cheapen human life."

McGowan said that we will preserve greater respect for individuals and have a more highly functioning society if we continue to prohibit the sale of organs, from donors who are dead or alive.

The ethical dilemma of organ transplantation and the way in which organs should be procured has been going on for decades, ever since the first human kidney was transplanted in 1954, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network.

The current policy, according to the Organ Transplantation Act of 1984, is aimed to encourage organ donation by establishing an organized organ matching and procurement network, while outlawing the buying and selling of human organs or the direct compensation of organ donors and their families.

William J. Rieber, professor of economics at Butler, said that the argument in favor of legalizing the buying and selling of organs is that the people who need the organs are more apt to be able get them because we expect a greater availability if there is a free market.

According to Organ Procurement and Transplant Network data, as of Nov. 26, 2004, there were 86,883 candidates listed to receive one or more organs. For this year, there have only been 9,434 donors listed who have been able to give their organs thus far.

"If there is a financial incentive, people will often make available the item that they will get compensated for," Rieber said.

"Sometimes, these other factors - moral, religious, and apathetic - are overcome when there are financial incentives."

One of the problems discussed in the President's Bioethics Council concerning an open market for organs is that the wealthy will have a considerable advantage in procuring organs over the poor.

A solution to this problem, Rieber said, is that lower-income people could petition certain groups for sponsorship, which would enable lower income individuals to get the resources to buy an organ.

John P. McGoff, M.D., Marion county coroner and finance chair for the board of Indiana Organ Procurement, said that we will never meet the demand for organs.

"Donation has gone up tremendously, but so has the wait list," McGoff said. "People have better cars and are healthier now, so we don't have the donations we would normally. I agree with the current policy that outlaws the buying and selling of organs, because I think that it is a gift to donate, and to try and profit from the donation of organs would actually decrease donation and lead to unscrupulous things. If you were to provide incentives, you would be going down a slippery slope in which people are going to go around the list, organs will go to the highest bidder, it will lose its egalitarianism."

Chris McMullen, a junior pharmacy major, said that the current system is not working right now and that something needs to change.

"I don't see a problem with a free market for organs," McMullen said. "However, I do think that there should be a limit on how much a person can ask for an organ. It could get out of control. They have to cap it."

Another policy that the President's Bioethics Council discussed is "routine retrieval," in which it becomes standard policy to retrieve all usable organs after death without consent.

"It would never fly because of religious and ethical issues," McMullen said. "It's a good thought but I don't think it would work. If it would help more people though I do think that it would be OK, personally, to make it mandatory."

Brandon Koenig, a sophomore finance major at Butler, said that something needs to be done to promote organ donation but opening it up to a free market wouldn't be the right way to go about it.

"I think that it would be good to provide incentives because it would increase the supply, but that would be the only real benefit I see," Koenig said. "I really think there would be a lot of difficulties implementing a human organ market as far as that it would only help the wealthy people that could pay the high prices. It's going to be difficult to regulate I think. The only other system I could think of is that if there was a government implemented system such as tax incentives or something along those lines, but if we leave it up to just people trying to buy organs; that is a bad idea."

Brian Scheur, a senior marketing major at Butler, said that from an economic standpoint it does make sense to legalize a system in which you can buy and sell organs. "I don't think, for example that, if you're the highest bidder I should be able to sell my organ to you just because you want it. It should go to the person with the most need," Scheur said. "There should be an organization that's created to facilitate that transaction so that there is a constant price for all organs, so that its not "I'm in desperate need, yours matches mine, I'm going to pay you half a million dollars because I have that in my bank account." Hopefully, they get that organ before they pass away, but it has to be fair all the way around. You can't move up the list by having money and can't move down the list by not having it."

I didn't realize that an open market for organs would be as controversial of an issue as it is until after I finished my research. To me, at first, it was simple. When people die they no longer need their organs. What better thing could they do than allow them to be given to someone who does need them, and get money in return for the family who has just lost a loved one? Or, if someone wanted to sell an organ that they did not need, such as a kidney, why should they not be compensated for it?

However, there are several opinions that differ from mine either for religious or personal reasons. Now I feel that the system should stay as is, in which organs are given as a gift by choice of the donor instead of sold, because people are not ready for the religious and moral implications tied to the selling of human parts.

This article posted April 23, 2005.

Sale of organs a complicated issue

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