Legal And Ethical Issues In Organ Transplantation

Today, organ transplantation procedures are being more successful because a lot of experiments are done every day to improve these procedures. So, since they help in improving the recipient length and quality of life, the demand for these procedures is greatly increased and is exceeding the supply. According to WHO, 79 people are receiving organ transplants and 22 people are dying because of a shortage of donated organs. So, despite all of these advantages and because of the shortage, a lot of legal and ethical issues have been raised because people have started to exploit organ transplantation for their own benefits and in illegal ways, like procurement of organs and tissues. And to better understand these issues we can classify them into

Since there are not enough tissues for all who need and the demand is continuous to increase, it makes no sense to give the tissues for those who will not benefit from the transplantation or those who will suffer with it. So, it is important to understand the concept of distributive justice, which means to fairly distribute the resources. And more importantly is to apply this concept by considering two points, which are equal access and maximum benefit. The concept equal access means to achieve equality in transplantation procedures between people. In other word, the distribution should be free of biases based on gender, race and income level. The second point to look for is the maximum benefit, which means to achieve the maximum number of successful transplants. This can be achieved by giving the sickest people the priority on the waiting list and not those who pay more. Also, by giving the organs for those who are less likely to reject the organs and more likely to benefit from it by living a new better life. Moreover, looking for the recipient that will live more number of years with the successful transplant will help to achieve the maximum benefit and therefore the distributive justice. Furthermore, covering the costs of the transplantation procedures by the public funds or the medical insurance will help in reducing the number of people who died

The reason of this is because most of these procedures are done successfully without implications. Also, they benefit the recipients by providing a longer life with a better quality. However, there are many ethical problems in these procedures that reduce their success. Some of these problems are related to the donor, whether deceased or living, like not being informed about the consequences. Others are related to the recipients like waiting more time because of inability to pay more. All these issues are reducing the benefits of the donation. However, there are something that can be done to reduce these issues like, applying the concept of distributive justice, covering the cost of these procedures by medical insurance and increasing the surveillance on the hospitals and doctors. In this way, we can get the maximum benefit of the organ transplantation procedures. In the end, it is really a great feeling when someone who is in death or alive, gives a life support to others who are in need by donating an organ. This act would cause positive effects on both donors’ and recipients’