Charles Krauthammer Yes Lets Pay For Organs Analysis

In his essay “Yes, Lets Pay for Organs”, Charles Krauthammer talks about the moral and ethical boundaries of paying for organs (kidneys). Krauthammer claims that organs should be harvested only from the dead and not the living because only dead people can be considered commodities. In his essay, Krauthammer states that there is shortage of organs, which can be reduced if organs are harvested from both the living and the dead. In his essay, Krauthammer says, “There is a distinction between strip-mining a live person and strip-mining a dead one. To be crude about it, whereas a person is not a commodity, a dead body can be” (2). In this quote, he says that harvesting organs from the dead is more ethical because they are considered a commodity.

Organs typically have a short transplant time, lungs and hearts have 5 hours or less, liver and intestines have around 10 hours or fewer etc. In his essay, Krauthammer talks mainly about kidneys. Kidneys can typically stay 19-20 hours outside the body and a max of 35 hours before it goes bad. With a dead person’s kidney, the kidney can also get damaged in transportation. This time gets less because the doctor has to make sure that the kidney is healthy enough to be donated and that it’s matched to the correct donor so the organ doesn’t get rejected. Then the travel time from the location of the deceased to the person in need, also gets added. Now if the person is living they can bring them to the hospital, match blood samples, and donor criteria. Once finalized, with both people in the same hospital, they begin the procedure; in this case the kidney stays max 1-2 hours outside the body. This result in the low chances of a viable organ from the dead to reach and save the life of the living. In “Yes, Lets Pay for Organs” Charles Krauthammer talks about paying the dead not living for organ donation to decrease the lack of it. He fails to see with both living and dead the odds of a successful transplant get