Organ Trafficking and Ethical Issues

Organ trafficking and ethical issues

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Organ trafficking and ethical issues

Organ trafficking occurs in various parts of the world and in the United States of America the first case to be known involved a Jewish rabii called Levy Rosenbaum (Arthur, 2013). Rosenbaum was indicted for being a broker in deals which involved the sale of livers and kidneys in the organ trafficking black-market. There were other four rabiis who were indicted together with him for these dealings. In most countries the organ trafficking black-market is illegal. Organ trafficking over the black-market is a controversial issue; that does not change the fact that it is unethical.

Wealthy people requiring organ transplants in the last few years traveled from various countries around the globe to China, Iraq, Pakistan and Egypt in search of kidneys and livers. Cadavers are also being used to obtain human tissues for marketing in addition to the trafficking of organs to hospitals from donors for sale to rich recipients. There has been moral condemnation for this trade in human organs and flesh from various quarters. Treating human beings more or less like mobile organ factories, or those who handle bodies of those who have died obtaining their parts and selling them is clearly unethical.

According to some people, harvesting body parts from those who are living or from the dead is not the problem, rather it is the making of that trade to be illegal. In the perspective of these people, selling of the organs by the donors is not the problem but making the trade to be unlawful causes it to occur underground giving abuses a higher chance of occurring. Those in support of the trade in human organs argue that the sale of these organs helps to save lives. Organs donated by the deceased are not enough to meet the great demand. For example, in 2012, about a million people in China needed a kidney yet only about 5,000 were lucky to receive in the previous year. They point out that there is no health threat to the seller, and the recipient buyer gets better or is able to live longer than would have been otherwise. The costs appear to be minimal in comparison with the benefits. Organ trade for commercial reasons would hence make society to be better off than with other sources whose organ supply is insufficient.

The people who are for organ trade claim that people are going to do whatever it takes to escape poverty regardless of what the law states. The supporters of organ trade argue that by making the trade in human organs illegal, people are pushed and become more predisposed to medical practitioners who