The Ethics of Human Organ Markets

As I have already brought up before, I have a strong interest in the medical field, and therefore I would like to spend this post discussing one of the most controversial issues in medicine: the purchase and sale of human organs.

When people mention human organ “markets”, they’re usually talking about the secretive, underground trade where people sell the rights to a non-vital organ, most commonly a kidney, in exchange for money. The process is notoriously risky and unsavory, and highly illegal almost everywhere (a notable exception being in Iran). Is it no surprise therefore, that organ trading is widely considered dubious at best by ethical standards. However, it is important to note that the consequences of organ selling are not exclusively negative, and that the amount of good an organ can do for a patient desperately in need of a transplant arguably lends it some ethical qualifications as well.

To start off with an argument for why the organ trade could be at least partially ethical, I point immediately to the over 80,000 Americans who are currently awaiting a kidney transplant. Most people know of the grueling waiting process that a transplant patient must go through to even hope of getting lucky enough to receive an available (not to mention compatible) organ. The bottom line is that the current supply of donated kidneys is not nearly enough to satisfy the current demand, and many people are dying not from medical inability (a kidney transplant surgery is hardly a new or uncommon technique) but from the more simple and tragic absence of an available kidney. Most people simply aren’t motivated to donate a kidney unless prompted by the sickness of a loved one. An organ market, which motivates people through currency, is what many people argue is the solution to this problem. Organ trading could vastly increase the supply of kidneys and other transplantable organs available, potentially saving thousands of lives every year, clearly an ethical result.

However, those who oppose organ trading from an ethical standpoint are still numerous for several reasons. The key argument they reference is that the people who are providing the organs for sale are almost exclusively the extremely poor. Kidney markets are thriving in impoverished areas such as in India, where kidneys can net their previous owners around $3000. That rate is twice as much in slightly better off Iran, where a kidney goes for around $6000.  In this way they argue that any ethical benefit to the wealthy transplant patients is offset but the coercion and sacrifice of the poor. People in poverty without other sources of income or who otherwise struggle to make ends meet could be forced into a situation where selling an organ becomes the only way to make some money. Furthermore, experts argue that allowing organ trading would increase the amount of organ theft that already occurs in some impoverished areas, where people are kidnapped and killed for their organs. In this way, it is easily arguable that although in theory organ trading is perfectly ethical, in practice it has much darker and more unethical consequences.

Many people are searching for a way to ensure that any potential organ market would be forced to operate ethically, but currently there are no viable suggestions. What do you guys think? Is there a possibility for a more ethically-operated organ market in the future?