Mantel's Liver Transplant

Organ transplant is the act of taking an organ from one person and putting it into a person whose organ has failed. Today there are over one hundred twenty two thousand people waiting for this precious gift of life. One organ donor has the capability of saving up to eight lives. There is a shortage of organ donors today and the list gets longer every year. How the decision is made on who gets an organ transplant is a set of rules established by the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN). These rules have several specific criteria that need to be met. Some of the general rules include blood type, type of organ, time on waiting list, and how far the donor is from the recipient. The waiting list only contains the biological information of the recipient. There is not any information that states any personal information. The computer matches organs based on compatibility information only. These are the policies of today and are to be followed without compromise (How Organs are Matched, 2015).

In nineteen ninety five a famous baseball player, Mickey Mantle, needed a liver transplant due to cirrhosis of the liver and hepatitis C. He was put on the transplant list and was able to receive his new liver in only two days. At that time the average wait for a new liver averaged one hundred and thirty days. There were a lot of individuals who questioned if Mickey got his liver so suddenly due to his celebrity status. Did the people who were involved with this decision make the right ethical choice in giving the organ to Mickey or was someone else more deserving of it.

There is a seven step guide to help people make ethical decisions. Even though not all people have the same ethics, using this type of guide can help to com e to an agreed upon decision.

Step one is to identify the decision to be made. One red flag may be that a person is having second thoughts on the decision to begin with. Did the people who were involved with the decision to move Mickey to the...