Sousen Ichimonji

 

One alternative is to purchase organs. By offering a substantial monetary incentive for those willing to donate their organs whilst alive, a more substantial amount of people may be willing to have organs they do not medically need to live full and healthy lives donated, helping to ease the shortage. Many countries in the world already work on a system in which organs can be purchased through their health services or through individual transactions – in 2002 in the Republic of Moldova, a very poor eastern European nation with a population of just over 3 and a half million, 24 year old Nicolae Birdan sold one of his kidneys for the equivalent of $3000, though had to pay $300 of that for transport to and from the Turkish operation centre in which the operation had been performed. The organ was then likely sold on for anything up to $150,000 to wealthy Europeans or Israelites.
Obviously though there are very serious moral objections to be made to this system – chiefly that of organ trafficking. There are many horror stories told of people being kidnapped or lured away from public areas, drugged, and waking up in a bath of ice-cold water to be latterly told that one or more of their organs have been harvested (if they’re left able to wake up at all), and these are grounded in truth; Nicolae Birdan isn’t a rare example, but equally common are cases of victims receiving the treatment described above at the hands of local gangs seeking to capitalise on one of the richest sources of incomes in the country. Bodies of their victims are likely to be left on the street, having been relieved of their kidneys, small bowel, lungs, liver, and heart. It is estimated that approximately 10% of all kidney donated, willingly or not, worldwide come from Moldova. This may be a hard-hitting and extreme example of how far organ trafficking can go, but it perfectly illustrates how corrupt and morally bankrupt systems can evolve if selling and purchasing organs is not efficiently monitored.
Other practical issues exist with organ marketing; the high cost means that equality in health care would be nigh impossible. The NHS (which already contrasts the notion of purchasing the organs for your transplantation by being mostly inclusive and free of immediate charge) would either be compelled to prioritise patients able to pay, unsettling any sense equilibrium within the British health service.
Another medical issue of this is that with a powerful incentive like a large monetary exchange, many people may compromise the integrity of the system to get their hands on the money. Through the late 1970’s up until the mid 1980’s, donated blood contaminated with HIV/AIDS was donated by high-risk groups such as injection-drug abusers, former prisoners and even from facilities in prisons themselves by large pharmaceutical conglomerates, who had allegedly paid some of the groups for their input. It is highly possible that many may have known about their affliction and the consequences of donating their blood to be transfused into another person, but the promise of a monetary reward may have been a factor that led to them continuing with the donation process. Organ transplants are also methods in which the virus, and many other illnesses, can spread and although screening and tests are made on all donated human tissue there is always the risk that an inconsiderate person desperate for money and an untimely misreading or error in the testing could lead to fatal consequences for someone waiting on the organ transplant list.