Should Sale Of Organ Be Legalized?

In US two doctors suggested the sale of organs to be legalized. This is due to the rising demand for organs such as kidney.

The number of donors is dwindling whereas the black market in organ sales was booming. Hence they suggested legalization as it would reduce the taboo around this issue.

But UK objected to this as it would be a move towards exploiting the poorest sections of society. In UK every year around 400 people die due to the non availability of a donor but the irony is that about 13 million people have signed up the register.

UK Transplant is a part of the National Health Service (NHS) which is responsible for the register.

It said that in many cases organs were prevented from being donated because the families were unaware of the donor's intentions.

Hence now people are encouraged to join the register and openly talk about it with their families. But it refused to legalize the selling of organs.

Eli Friedman, a kidney specialist, at the State University of New York, and Amy Friedman, a transplant specialist, of Yale University, said that if the selling of the organ was legalized then each one would be able to control their own body parts. This would result in complete exploitation of one’s body parts.

As of now selling body parts is illegal and is accepted as unethical by the medical field but statistics show that the voluntary sale of purchased donor kidneys now accounts for thousands of black market transplants.

The price for a kidney is about £23,000 and the doctors asked that an agency be set up to regulate the market.

Dr Michael Wilks, chairman of the British Medical Association's ethics committee was against the idea of making the whole issue legal.

He said that it would exploit the third world countries resulting in an uncontrollable global market for selling of organs.

Inspite of this the other alternative suggested was an increased investment in transplantation services, intensive care and presumed consent then it would be possible to save millions of lives.