English // cause and effect essay
Abstract
There is a growing paradoxical problem in the world today.
The lack of resource to find organ donors. The kidney transplant donors list is a long list with people dying due to lack of organ donors in their country. So, they found a way. They go to other countries, countries which are poorer and in need, to harvest their organs. Organ trafficking is rampant as kidnappers catch children and adults and force them to give up their organs for sale in the black market.
This is the cause and the effect is the paradoxical turning of healthy donors into patients themselves or even cause them to die.
How can this be alleviated? Cracking down on illegal vendors of organs only bring them underground, away from the light of what they have become. Bodies for sale.
The Transplant Trade, Sale or Donation
The sale, donation or trade of human organs is a question of ethics rather than commercialization. We are called to investigate the matter of selling organs because it has proliferated. The rich countries are able to buy organs they need from the poorer countries which in turn suffer the consequences by not getting the exact amount they were promised due to fear of being found out and turned into criminals by the government thus, can only be satisfied by the payment they are given.
The sale of organs has been clamped down by the government in the pursuit of justice for everyone. A clean donor and an expectant patient in need of the organ. But in all these, the value of transparency is lost because donors would keep on doing this in stealth and all of these regulatory efforts would be for nothing. In the dark, the poor donors would be the victim and the rich patients would be found guilty of harvesting organs from the poor with nary a thought as to the consequences of their actions which may cause the life long illness of the donor or even death just so that the donor can provide for his family.
Is this ethical? I argue that it is not. What kind of a system allows for such to happen with the poor countries savagely being turned into a harvesting field like free human cadavers. Not only that, but some of these donors have not been given a choice. Kidnapping of children or adults, forcing them to give up their organs has become rampant in the Third World Countries. And the world trade of organs moves on in a cycle of injustice that is at most undignified. There is no
question of ethics here, only the silent slaughter of innocent people.
“As regards to poverty and ill health, they are rooted in factors other than organ sale and need to be addressed accordingly.” (Kishore).
It has been estimated that most of the donors come from the Philippines, Pakistan and India. The statistics are staggering. India has also become another organ donor field. Brazil and Middle Eastern countries also have been included. The patients or recipients go to other countries in search of a donor in what is called a process of “transplant tourism”.
They go abroad and find their donor at a cheap price and find the organ they are in search of.
This is not unusual anymore and the government has been trying to regulate this anomaly on the basis that it is unethical and dangerous for everyone including the recipient who may not be getting sanitary organs or the transplant procedures in these countries may not be sanitary as well with corrupt doctors willing to do the transplant.
“The Internet has often been used to attract foreign patients. Several web sites offer all-inclusive “transplant packages” – the price of a renal transplant package ranges from US$ 70 000 to 160 000.” (Shimazono, 2007).
The very idea of selling organs to recipients is a frightening yet most real act of today. The scarcity of human organs is the cause and the effect is the damage to the poorer countries and the
criminal act of kidnapping children and adults for the primary goal to harvest their organs.
In a movie written Kazuo Ishiguro, even genetically developed humans are given a scenario wherein these people have feelings and that to be used as an ethical means to harvest organs from them is defined as unethical as much as gruesome and inhumane, even though they are not biologically human in the way they were created to live.
Most prevalent is the sale of kidney organs from poor donors. The risks are high because the transplant done is precariously unsanitary with doctors who are half witted to do the job.
Kidneys are highly priced in the market because there is a long, long waiting list of patients who need kidney transplant.
Again the cause is the scarcity of kidneys for transplant.
The effect is that the donors become, in turn, the patients
“Yet, paradoxically, transplant donation does require the doing of harm to a healthy person, thus transforming him or her into a patient.” (Soper, 1998)
This paradox is unjust and must be put into a stop. If we look at this argument of cause and effect like a puzzle it would only result in a judgement call wherein the answer is that there is something very wrong in this situation. And yet here we are faced with the question of poverty. There are so many people out there who are willing to put their kidneys for sale because they are
poor. To answer that we should alleviate poverty by doing this is wrong. There must be another way. Legalizing it could put a stop to unsanitary practices but then again, the paradox of how to keep the donors from falling into harm is still a question, because they will get sick, they will become another patient, they might even die.
Sometimes, there are donors who are not giving up their kidneys for material reasons. They may be a relative, a family friend, a parent, a sibling.
But there must be the certainty that they undergo a safe and sanitary kidney transplant. They have to be assured of proper medical procedure so that the donor does not become a patient as well.
“…The existing law enforcement response is not only inadequate but harmful. The analysis is based on empirical data gathered in Cairo, Egypt , among member of the Sudanese population who have either sold or arranged for the sale of kidneys. The data suggest that prohibition has pushed the organ trade further underground increasing the role of organ broker and reducing the bargaining position of organ sellers, leaving them exposed to greater levels of exploitation.” (Columb, 2016)
This is the grand effect.
There is only the lack of transparency that brings down the whole system into a million pieces. There can be no justice even in the justice system itself. I think the system is fallible therefore there must be another way. Initiate a fight against poverty would be the best thing to do instead
of cracking down those who are engaged in the trade.
Poverty is the cause and effect is a macabre dance of selling organs at a cheap price.
Poverty, then, is the one that must be solved. It is idealistic to say there is no way around poverty but there is. Develop the country from its throes through the help of neighboring or highly developed countries and there would be a proper system of transplant control. One that is medically sanitary and safe for both parties: the donor and the recipient.
There should be no more roaming in the dark, cracking down on the already impoverished donor who has no choice but to sell his organ because he has nothing more to sell.
The cycle of problem must be resolved but not in the way it is being done today. In this way of cracking down on the illegal donors everyone gets into a mad rush of disparity: the activists, the police, the government, the NGOs etc.
“Trafficking in human beings for the purpose of organ removal (THBOR) and human organ trade are universally condemned.1-3 However, despite efforts to curb and to elucidate the illegal nature of the practice, the buying and selling of organs continues,4 involving patients traveling to countries throughout the world. It has been estimated that approximately 10% of all transplants may occur illegally.” (Caulfield, 2016)
It may be that this is the only way, in the meantime. Recipients must discuss with their doctor how it can be done, safe and legally. There must be transparent contact between the hospital who will do the procedure and the organ donor who is to supply the organ. Everything must be done
in the safest way possible.
For the meantime.
References:
Caulfield, 2016, Trafficking in Human Beings for the Purpose of Organ Removal and the Ethical and Legal Obligations of Healthcare Providers, Transplantation, Retrieved from https://journals.lww.com/transplantationdirect/Fulltext/2016/02000/Trafficking_in_Human_Beings_for_the_Purpose_of.5.aspx
Columb, 2016, Excavating the Organ Trade: An Empirical Study of Organ Trading Networks in Cairo, Egypt, The British Journal of Criminology, Retrieved from https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article/57/6/1301/2623947
Kishore, Human organs, scarcities, and sale: morality revisited, BMJ Journals, Retrieved from https://jme.bmj.com/content/31/6/362
Shimazono, 2016, The State of the International Organ Trade, Bulletin of the world Health Organization, Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2636295/
Soper 1998, Organ Donation and Kidney Sales, The Lancet, Retrieved from https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(05)79219-9/fulltext
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