Organ Donation and Federal Laws Essay Example

According to a media release by the CNN has revealed about a young man who sold his kidney for a lot of money. It has been now for some time that we heard about a Brooklyn businessman was arrested for organ trafficking and in most cases there is usually the case of willing buyer willing seller which has alerted the authorities very much. According to the CNN young cash strapped man all the way in Israel responded to an ad in a newspaper which called for a kidney donor. The young man went all the way to New York from Tel Aviv, Israel to make the kidney donation. What however was baffling is that he received a compensation for the donation of the kidney. The young man Rosen admitted to having received $20,000 as compensation for the kidney he donated although he lied to the hospital administration in charge of transplant. What this young man did is that he violated a 1994 US federal law that restricts selling or in any way purchasing a live organ for cash. Although he did this contrary to what the federal law dictates it is also prudent to note that he did it openly and in a hospital unlike in many case whereby the sale is done in an illicit way thereby endangering the people involved (Manninen & Evans, 1985). This case brings into the picture the aspect of organ donation, sale or trade. One thing we need to look at and study well is the issue of selling or donating an organ willingly (Abadie & Gay, 2006). This points out to the aspect of how we can classify the different examples as whether donation can be same as selling. By definition I can confidently define organ donation as the act through which an individual willingly accepts to give out his organ to a person who is in need but not limited to receiving s token of appreciation and not a set price. Secondly my working definition of organ sale would be going out and advertising for yourself that you are selling an organ and setting the price and the space for negotiations. These two definitions are important as they set out to differentiate between selling and donating. So from here we ask the fundamental question; did the young man from Tel Aviv donate or sell his kidney? Although controversial I think the young man did not sell his kidney but instead he donated it to someone who was in need. So in criteria this person falls under just a willing donor.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

The definition of a donor as said in the previous paragraph is that a person who willingly accepts to give out his organ to a person who is in need of such an organ. This means for one to qualify as an organ donor is that he or she must be willing to donate with no compulsion from anybody around him (Abadie & Gay, 2006). This means an organ donor usually decides for him or herself that he is willing to give out his or her organ and goes ahead to do it in order to save the person who is in need of the organ. That is the first criteria. The second criterion is that an organ donor should not at all expect any form of payment from the recipient because he or she is doing it out of his own volition. That constitutes organ donations which to many it is usually a way to save others and because sometimes organs are very expensive through organ donation many people even those who might not be able to afford can be able to have organ transplant. This means it's a way to make access open to all people (Johnson & Goldstein, 2003). The boundaries in organ donations are receiving payment or precisely asking for payment from the recipient of the organ. This does not however mean that if the recipient decides to thank you personally it will be wrong. Because it the recipient doing that and there is no set price then this token can be accepted and it will only be accepted if it is the recipient who has initiated it and decides that he can do it without being forced. An organ donor is therefore not an organ seller and I different from a trafficker. If the donor asks for a refund in terms of his or her organ then it is clearly that he or she is not following the criteria of being a donor and therefore poses danger (Johnson & Goldstein, 2003). An organ donor does it in the open without any alterations as it is within the law.

As much as we may say a lot about the case, I think according to the definition given the man was just a donor and the reason is very simple, he saw an ad in a newspaper that someone need a kidney very much and because it touched him he decided he was going to donate his kidney to that person. This therefore means that there was no trade that would be involved in that case. What was there was pure voluntary donation. This man went all the way to New York from Tel Aviv just to give a person who desperately needed a kidney. The journey was long and although we are told he was cash starved he was able to make the trip. The fact that there was no price quotation for the kidney directly puts this as just organ donation from a willing giver. When the man was going to New york he never was going expecting any kind of money as the ad had not quoted any form of monetary compensation. This can therefore mean that the recipient or his family might just have decided on their own to give the man a token of appreciation for his deeds. Getting a kidney is very hard and its understandably that when the recipient got the kidney he might have felt overwhelmed by how the stranger decided to offer the help. This might have been the reason why he decides to reward him. The man becomes a willing donor accordingto my definition of an organ donor. The cash that he received was not part of the agreement from the ad and this is why we can't consider it as a price for the kidney that he gave out. The criteria discussed from my definition of an organ donor fits well to this man from Israel. First he saw an advert from a newspaper that someone needed a kidney and decide to donate his own. He travelled all the way and donated but however he received a token without the knowledge of the hospital but still there was no price quoted meaning that the recipient decided to reward him just as a way of saying thank you and appreciation (Horton & Horton, 1990).

This case fully follows the criteria that way discussed and in no way did our subject go beyond the limits of being an organ donor (Horton & Horton, 1990). The people of Israel are allowed to go abroad and donate organs but no money should be involved in terms of pricing. Although the man did make some money, he did it not through trading his organ but through the recipient appreciation. That which constitutes organ donations which to many it is usually a way to save others and because sometimes organs are very expensive through organ donation many people even those who might not be able to afford can be able to have organ transplant. This means it's a way to make access open to all people. The boundaries in organ donations are receiving payment or precisely asking for payment from the recipient of the organ (Board, 2002). This means that our subject did not ask for any payment and he even catered for himself to the US to make the donation to the person who needed it.

Conclusion

From this controversial case I think the issue of the payment can be taken not as a trade but as an appreciation and this is because in the ad there was no mention of the price meaning that it was supposed to be a willing donor to do it (Board, 2002). Also this can be backed up by the fact that it was done in a known hospital and done by professionals who followed all the procedures that are usually involved in organ transplant.

References

Abadie, A., & Gay, S. 2006). The impact of presumed consent legislation on cadaveric organ donation: a cross-country study. Journal of health economics.

Board, S. (2002). Ethical incentive-not payment-for organ donation. N Engl J Med

Horton, R. L., & Horton, P.J. (1990). Knowledge regarding organ donation: Identifying and overcoming barriers to organ donation. Social science and medicine.

Johnson, E. J., & Goldstein, D. (2003). Do defaults save lives?.Manninen, D. L., & Evans, R. W. (1985). "Public attitudes and behavior regarding organ donation" Jama