The Importance Of Organ Donation

The myths and misconceptions regarding organ donations are many, and indeed this situations constitutes an obstacle in increasing the overall number of organ donations. There are many instances of such misconceptions. One of these instances is the religious one. In fact, many people are convinced that organ donations are forbidden by their religious beliefs and this is common among Roman Catholics, Judoists, Islamics and Jews among the others. However, these are clearly myths. Most modern religions recognise the importance of organ donations and as such allow them unconditionally. Roman Catholics consider organ donations as an act of love and charity and endorsed organ donations through a 1985 resolution by the Christian Church. One the same

At least in the short run, no strategy can be as effective as that of placing financial incentives on such donations. Generally speaking, placing financial incentives on organ donations could have two implications, one direct and one indirect. As a direct implication, financial incentives would diminish the organ shortage, as this would lead to more people being willing to donate their organs. As an indirect implication, this would shrink the black market for organs in a twofold way : on one side it would decrease its demand and on the other it would give people willing selling to sell their organs a legal, safer and a morally more acceptable

However, many people oppose the use of incentives, being they financial or of other kinds, in the field of organ donations, holding that it is not moral place any kind of economic value on a human organ or that organ donations should be an altruistic rather than an convenient choice. Many commentators hold that making organs an instrumental good by somehow compensating the donor is a morally reprehensible action, as every donation should be made out of generosity, it should be an altruistic gift. However, I do not see how such a weak argument could be considered more important than actually saving one person’s life, especially as this does not do harm to anybody. I believe that when it comes to saving a person’s life, we should not differentiate whether the organ is donated out of generosity or in exchange of something, because the final goal is to save a person’s life. Furthermore, when a person is waiting for an organ, that person would probably not care whether the organ is coming from a voluntary donation or from a paid one. Rather, incentives on organ donations not only can save many lives while not harming anyone, but also can increase some people’s situation by granting them either money or benefits of other nature. For example, today due to funeral’s high costs, many people can hardly afford them, thus, donation benefits could have a double utility in this regard