Name
Capella University
PHI FPX 3200
Prof. Name
November, 2024
Robbing the Dead: Is Organ Conscription Ethical?
Organ transplantation is a surgery that has to be performed to help patients with organ failure to live again. Nonetheless, the need for organs from donors is much higher than the availability of the organs due to a shortage. Therefore, the lack of adequate donor organs has seen them look for other channels such as conscription of organ harvesting. Pemberton (2022) defines organ conscription as the removal of organs from people who have died in circumstances where they did not agree to the process. But this brings out compassionate ethical concerns regarding the dignity of the patient and the family and the justice or unjust practicability of the allocation of body organs. These concerns measure the ethical issues of conscription organs and the significance of controlling the distribution of the affected human body organs.
Moral Concerns Related to Organ Conscription
Thus, organ transplantation can save thousands of lives because the human body contains organs that can effect such a change. However, because there are few available donor organs, people have to stay on lists for years before they receive them. According to the data, in the United States today, there are more than 100,000 patients in need of organ transplantation, and more than 33,000 transplants were conducted in 2021. The most frequently transplanted organs in the US include kidneys, liver, heart, lung, and pancreas.
Deferment from donor organs or the process of getting them from the Bodies of the deceased has been mooted as a remedy for this lack of available donor organs. However, this procedure causes some ethical problems connected with the dignity and permission of the deceased person (Zambrano, 2023). Another problem is the ability of the parties that ally, especially agencies or groups involved in tendering, to exploit vulnerable and sometimes helpless individuals within the community during the tendering process and in the bid to deliver the project. Without adequate safeguards and measures, it can be conceivable that people can be compelled, or persuaded into consenting to be donors. This also evokes concerns about the proceduralism of informed consent and the idea of inequity within the allocation of the organs donated. Paid organ donation can be sourced through conscription, as the number of organs available for transplantation is still limited.
On the same note, it is important to make sure that the policy being implemented is ethical and that there is regulation through the legal framework to embrace and safeguard an individual. Nevertheless, in the case of organ conscription, it must be done right with complete dignity towards the dead body (Costa et al., 2020).
Compare and Contrast Examples of Organ Donation Policy
As for the Organ Donor legislation, there are numerous ways that different countries have embarked upon it. Among them, the most prominent issue of ethics can be considered the informed consent of a patient or the patient’s autonomy. In this context informed consent refers to the procedure of requesting the permission rights of the patient before undertaking transplantation. While patient participation means patients’ freedom to make various choices, patient autonomy means the human subject’s freedom to make choices about acting as a donor (American Transplant Foundation, 2019). For instance, in the United States, the opt-out arrangement that is obtained in every country is replaced by an opt-in system whereby people have to give their consent to become organ donors. In the US, any transplantation requires that the healthcare providers should seek permission from the patient, or the family members for that matter. The consent may ideally be an elaborate one in cases where the patient discusses with other family members or where the family has to respect the patient’s wishes.
Questions about Fairness and Justness
People with organ failure need a chance to undergo transplantation to live; that is why access to this service is necessary. Nevertheless, organs for transplantation are scarce and this is accompanied by unequal provision of organs and unfair distribution. In the US there are no policies created on consent before the time of death and removing organs from the dead can bring into question some ethical and moral dilemmas (Golden, 2019). 90, some people may not have access to organ transplantation programs such to financial barriers or lack of information, and this results in inequalities in the life-saving procedures. Furthermore, those who need urgent transplantation will undergo an elaborate evaluation process, and a long waiting list that may be deemed as a fairness issue. Hence, it is an essential aspect to encourage organ procurement and allocation to be ethical and fair to fulfill the goal of justice and benefit all people who need the process of transplantation of organs.
Strategies for Increasing Public Acceptance
Due to the insufficient number of organs for transplantation, expansion of the population’s willingness to donate is essential. Ways of enhancing the acceptability include; awareness campaigns, outreach, legislation like the ‘tick the box’ campaign, organ donor listing, and advocating for families to express their unsuccessful stand on organ donation. Awareness campaigns will assist in eliminating cultural events, stories, or rumors regarding the illness and people’s engagement will assist in addressing all cultural or religious beliefs about the virus (Lewis et al., 2020). Opt-out policies have worked in some countries and donor registries may be useful sources of data for physicians and patients. Other ways by which families can endorse the program to accept and advocate organ donation include the need to engage the families in discussions of the decisions they have towards organ donation. Combining these strategies represents a comprehensive, organismic approach that contributes to raising the number of transplanted organs to save more people’s lives (Delgado et al., 2019).
Significance of the Consent
The idea of consent becomes important and appropriate within the sphere of obligation concerning the use of grafts for transplantation as it is one of the major ethical and legal principles for obtaining organs to be transplanted. Consent is an act where an individual gives permission freely in agreement to the donation of his or her organs after death. That is one of the basics of medical ethics, which is crucial for protecting patient self-determination and ensuring that an organ donation is done willingly (Madden et al., 2020). The consent model is a legal mechanism followed in the United States that empowers an individual’s ability to participate in decision-making about his bodily part even if deceased. This model promotes the professional values of both autonomy and informed consent legally mandated to healthcare givers involving the patient.
In any case, the use of the model rests on the principles of its autonomy. This means that it is unlawful and unethical to use that individual’s organs in the absence of their consent. Consent involving organ donation is particularly important regarding the ethical legal considerations in the area (Costa et al., 2020). Thus, the principles of autonomy and self-determination should be followed while performing an organ donation process to make sure that the actions toward the patient are worth respecting. Through these efforts, the particle field of organ donation may well proceed to make a positive difference in the lives of people who require transplantation.
Consequences when Donor Consent is Absent
Lack of donor consent results in a violation of respecting autonomy or even causing a highly uncomfortable state for the family of the donor. It will also exacerbate inequality in opportunities referring to organ transplantation programs and can prompt justice considerations. Even when citizens expressed their objection to organ donation in the modalities in presumed consent countries they may well be considered as potential donors thus causing more ethical issues. In all, lack of donor consent presents downstream effects that may, in a negative way, affect personal freedom, fairness, and donor justice in an OD program.
Alternative Policies for Availability of Donor Organs
At the top of most concerns facing the medical field, is the scarcity of donor organs for transplantations. In the United States, some of the advocates have called for a change of laws and regulations on organ donation to supply the market with more organs (Martínez et al., 2022). This would involve moving from opting in by default to donating organs until people decided otherwise. While reviewing the existing literature, several researchers have established that countries with presumed consent regimes generally record increased levels of organ procurement as well as improved results for patients. Another one is to create some kind of market in which people would be paid for exporting their organs. Instead, this proposal has cultural and societal challenges where the sale of organs is barred in all or most countries across the world is likely to attract ethical issues.
There is also the need to launch extensive public awareness campaigns to ensure that there are more donors. Self-promotion and/or simplifying dentists’ concerns about donation can encourage people to become organ donors. However, some opinions on increasing the capacities of existing contacts between hospitals and organ procurement organizations can also raise a problem of supply and demand and increase the number of donor organs available for transplant (Sunjaya & Sunjaya, 2019). In general, new policy measures and educational initiatives will assist in dealing with a shortage of transplantation organ donors.
Consequences of Continued Donor Organ Shortages
This paper aims to demonstrate that adverse outcomes of continued scarcity of donor organs cannot be obviated because they result in many patients experiencing poor health, lower quality of life, and higher mortality. Lack of available organs makes existing disparities and inequalities in the healthcare systems even worse – poor communities thus suffer most in organ failure cases. This leads to a decrease in the total human output across society and may mean more costs to the health sector because of longer hospitalizations and protracted treatment (Neizer et al., 2020). This desperation for organs leads people to the black market for these organs, where there are always extremely high chances of transmitting diseases such as HIV/AIDS, and a very high level of exploitation of persons, especially from the less fortunate end of the society. However, most of the population who are unable to undergo other treatments or possibly go abroad for organ transplantation do not have any chances left. Hence, work must be geared towards developing other strategies to enhance the availability of organs such as awareness creation, promotion of people donation, and formation of policies that will enhance operations of the organ donation and transplant programs.
PHI FPX 3200 Assessment 4 Conclusion
All in all, it can be stated that organ transplantation is a vitally important and life-saving operation the need for which grows every year; however, the actual number of donor organs is distressingly low (Ahmad et al., 2019). The proposed solution to the situation includes the concept of conscription organ procurement, though this poses ethical problems concerning respect for the dignity and the auto nomination of the deceased and their family and the overtones involved in the equity of the procurement of the organs. Strategies to increase public acceptance of organ donation include public education campaigns, community engagement, legislative approaches such as opt-out policies, donor registries, and encouraging families to discuss their wishes about organ donation.
PHI FPX 3200 Assessment 4 References
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