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Essay On Ethical Dilemmas In Organ Donation

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Ethical Decisions for Organ Allocation and Transplantation
Leslie Mosley
Jacksonville State University

Ethical Decisions for Organ Allocation and Transplantation Organ donation, a surgical operation replacing a failing organ with a new one, became possible in 1954 with the first successful kidney transplant (Butts & Rich, 2016). The issues surrounding this medical advancement have changed throughout the years. Early ethical concerns involved the removing of organs from both living patients and cadavers. The definition of death had not yet been legalized; therefore, it was uncertain how to clinically determine the death of a donor (Butts & Rich, 2016). Ethical dilemmas have continued to plague the process of organ allocation and transplantation. The supply and demand of organs available continue to make the decisions surrounding organ distribution controversial; the choice of organ recipients should always be made with unbiased, clinical knowledge of which patient will have the best possible outcome from receiving the organ.
Organizations are in place to help determine which candidates should …show more content…

The organ shortage creates a penalizing effect on those currently on the waiting list with each new discovery of indications for transplantation; it may also cause ethical measures to overshadow medical decisions (Donckier et al., 2014). The public and transplant professionals must strive to develop impartial and consistent guidelines for allocation and transplantation that are globally accepted (Donckier et al., 2014). Adhering the major ethical beliefs, decreasing the amount of non-medical parameters utilized in organ selection criteria, and placing medical treatment over moral considerations are all important actions in defining the precise roles of organ allocation and transplantation in the

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