Organ Sales Definition Essay

Cake Guy

ENG 111

April 17, 2016

Professor Smith

A Question of Ethics through the Selling of Organs in the United States

Due to the current demand for organ transplants, black market organ sales have been increasing as an attempt to meet the needs of transplant patients. Both the buyer and seller put their lives on the line when they enter into black market organ sales. According to a Bloomberg Market news article in 2011, this was the case for both Luis Picado and Matthew Ryan (Smith, 2011). Mr. Ryan a resident of New York solicited Mr. Picado, a poor Nicaraguan, to sell him one of his kidneys in exchange for a job and residence in New York City. On the day of the transplant, Mr. Picado came out of surgery bleeding internally from an artery the doctors have severed to remove his kidney according to his medical records. Mr. Ryan died two months after receiving Mr. Picado’s kidney in the same hospital. These two men were participants in an increasing illegal market. Even though the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984 prohibits financial gain through the selling of human organs, black market sales of human organs are still active in the U.S. The black market sale of organs in not only illegal, the sales of these organs questions the ethics of this practice. Organ sales are unethical because they give an unfair advantage to the wealthy, create dangerous risks for both the buyer and seller, and exploit the poor and vulnerable.

With an increase in the needed number of organ transplants, people are turning to the unethical practice of organ sales. According to Merriam-Webster, the meaning of unethical is, not conforming to a high moral standard; morally unacceptable (2016). The transaction of organ sales are done with a lack of oversight, lapses in proper handling and testing of the organs, and taking advantage of people who are in financial hardship. A person selling an organ may only receive a fraction of the selling pricing, many of the poor are...