The right to buy and sell human organs is challenged by the authors within the framework of a broad Christian perspective. Opposition to organ sales is argued in the light of the developing underclass of poor organ donors throughout the world who sell their organs to the rich. Very often neither the donors nor the recipients are fully informed about the medical risks involved in the procedure of organ transplantation.

While people’s lives continue to be put at risk by the dearth of organs available for transplantation, we must give urgent consideration to any option that may make up the shortfall. A market in organs from living donors is one such option. The market should be ethically supportable, and have built into it, for example, safeguards against wrongful exploitation. This can be accomplished by establishing a single purchaser system within a confined marketplace.Statistics can be dehumanising. The following numbers, however, have (...) more impact than most: as of 24th November, during 2002 in the United Kingdom, 667 people have donated organs, 2055 people have received transplants, and 5615 people are still awaiting transplants.1 It is difficult to estimate how many people die prematurely for want of donor organs. “In the world as a whole there are an estimated 700 000 patients on dialysis . . . . In India alone 100 000 new patients present with kidney failure each year”2 . Almost “three million Americans suffer from congestive heart failure . . . deaths related to this condition are estimated at 250 000 each year . . . …. (shrink)

In recent years, the free market position has been gaining strength. In this book, Radin provides a nuanced response to its sweeping generalization.

A Christian ethicist discusses such problems as organ transplants, caring for the terminally ill, and defining death.

We are walking too quickly down the road to physical and psychological utopia without pausing to assess the potential damage to our humanity from this brave new ...

From all points of the political compass, from widely different groups, have come indignant outcries against the trade in human organs from live vendors. Opponents contend that such practices constitute a morally outrageous and gross exploitation of the poor, inherently coercive and obviously intolerable in any civilized society. This article examines the arguments typically offered in defense of these claims, and finds serious problems with all of them. The prohibition of organ sales is derived not from the principles and argument (...) usually invoked in support of prohibition, but rather, from strong feelings of repugnance which exert an invisible but powerful influence on the debate, distorting the arguments [and working] to the detriment of the [very] people most in need of protection. (shrink)

This new edition of his "Bioethics features updated information throughout, a fuller discussion of human embryos -- including stem cell research -- and a ...

Much of the opinion scandalized by recent reports of kidneys being sold for transplant is significantly inconsistent. The sale of kidneys is not substantially different from practices espoused, and indeed endorsed, by many of those who condemn the former. Our moral concern, I suggest, needs to focus on the customer's actions rather than the seller's; and on the implications for larger questions of the considerations to which this gives rise.

Some of the most difficult and wrenching social and political issues in U.S. society today are about the relationship between strongly held moral values and the laws of the land. There is no consensus about whether the law should deal with morality at all, and if it is to do so, there is no agreement over whose morality is to be reflected in the law.In this compact and carefully edited anthology, Gerald Dworkin presents the readings necessary for an understanding of (...) these issues. The volume contains classical and contemporary philosophical statements as well as a generous sampling of legal cases and opinions, including such topics of current interest as flag-burning, nude dancing, the sale of human organs, and sexual behavior. The volume represents the best in applied legal and moral philosophy. (shrink)

: Gill and Sade, in the preceding article in this issue of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, argue that living individuals should be free from legal constraints against selling their organs. The present commentary responds to several of their claims. It explains why an analogy between kidneys and blood fails; why, as a matter of public policy, we prohibit the sale of human solid organs, yet allow the sale of blood; and why their attack on Kant's putative argument against (...) the sale of human body parts is misplaced. Finally, it rejects the claim that the state is entitled to interfere with the actions of individuals only if such actions would harm others. We draw certain lines grounded in what Rawls has termed "public reason" beyond which we do not give effect to the autonomous self-regarding decisions of individuals. Public resistance to the sale of human body parts, no matter how voluntary or well informed, is grounded in the conviction that such a practice would diminish human dignity and our sense of solidarity. A system of organ donation, in contrast, conveys our respect for persons and honors our common humanity. (shrink)

Organ transplantation is at once a technology that raises new ethical problems and a good testing ground for various moral principles. It has become a common procedure in some countries and, at least in the United States, promises to become even more so. It poses questions about costs and benefits as well as the very large question of whether we should try to renew human life indefinitely and, if so, at what cost. It raises the problem of whether organs are (...) the property of their possessors – at least when the possessors are competent adults. It raises issues of organ sales, of what might be called donor recruitment, of informed consent, of reparations when transplant fails, of eligibility for transplant, and of competition for medical time and expertise between transplantation and other, less dramatic kinds of medical care. This essay touches on all of these topics, with the aim of identifying the broad dimensions of the ethical problems of organ transplantation and some of the moral principles that may help us solve them. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The late Richard Titmuss made a persuasive case against allowing the sale of human blood in his book, The Gift Relationship. His arguments have been developed further by Peter Singer in recent articles. While the issues of quantity and quality of blood under market and non‐market systems have received much attention, the moral and political aspects of the Titmuss‐Singer case have gone relatively unexamined. First, I question their claim that a donation‐only system promotes greater freedom, which rests on a (...) confusion of liberty and opportunity. Next, I consider reasons for doubting their view that altruism is fostered significantly more under the non‐market approach. Finally, I survey recent developments in the quantity‐quality debate and possible implications of the blood controversy for national health care. (shrink)

In this paper a plea is made for an unprincipled approach to biomedical ethics, unprincipled of course just in the sense that the four principles are neither the start nor the end of the process of ethical reflection. While the four principles constitute a useful “checklist” approach to bioethics for those new to the field, and possibly for ethics committees without substantial ethical expertise approaching new problems, it is an approach which if followed by the bioethics community as a whole (...) would, the author believes, lead to sterility and uniformity of approach of a quite mindbogglingly boring kind. Moreover, much of bioethics is not concerned with identifying the principles or values appropriate to a particular issue, but rather involves analysing the arguments that are so often already in play and which present themselves as offering solutions in one direction or another. Here, as I try to show in discussion of these four scenarios, the principles allow massive scope in interpretation and are, frankly, not wonderful as a means of detecting errors and inconsistencies in argument. (shrink)