Every year many thousands of people die for lack of an organ donor. Individuals are often willing to donate their organs after death, but few successful transplants actually take place. This is often due to a lack of tissue match between donor and possible recipient, but the donor’s next of kin also influence whether or not organs will be donated, since they hold the legal power to decide if donation will proceed. It is entirely possible to live a full and healthy life with just one kidney, unless something happens to that kidney. In every society some people need money, and other people need kidneys; so why not allow people to sell their kidneys? The practice goes on illegally anyway – for instance there are several poor villages in Pakistan where nearly half the residents have only one kidney, having sold the other. What are we to make of this idea? Is it helpful? Sensible? Do we have a basic right to do what we want with our bodies? Or is it it exploitation of people in poverty by richer people?
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Listen to the discussion at
www.open2.net/ethicsbites/organ_transplants.html
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVW5OFbXmM0
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_donation
www.tarunaoils.com/articles/survive-one-kidney.asp