A study conducted at the University of Chicago by Alberto Abadie and Sebastien Gay, over organ transplantation systems, came to the conclusion that about eighteen people die a day due to the failure of receiving organs. That is eighteen lives that could be saved by healthy organs of a deceased person!
Farrell, Price, and Quigley have argued that the “number of heart-beating donors have reduced as a result of fewer young people dying of severe head injury or catastrophic events, such as road-traffic accidents” (4). With less heart-beating donations the organ shortage is actually becoming a problem now (Farrell, Price, and Quigley 4). Organ shortage is not only a problem in the UK, it is a problem for most countries with a “developed organ donation and transplantation systems” all over the world (Farrell, Price, and Quigley 4). According to Glaser, “In countries with presumed consent laws, there is a higher procurement rate for organs than in countries without these laws” (21). …show more content…
Presumed consent helps match the donor and recipient better to make sure that the operation will go as planned (Glaser 21). Cases reported from Argentina and Russia, have said that organs have been removed from “comatose patients who were prematurely declared brain-dead” (Glaser 21). Presumed consent should be legal because it can increase the supply of organs.
Another good fact of presumed consent is that there would be a decrease in health costs for the government (Glaser 21). Kidney dialysis is very common in the United States which means that there is a lot of money spent on the federally funded dialysis program. A kidney transplant and the whole treatment after is so much less money than what is spent on kidney dialysis for a whole year (Glaser 21). If kidney transplant continues to grow and become common, the yearly cost for dialysis would go decrease and we would have less and fewer patients on dialysis (Glaser 21). Due to the demand for organs and the prices people will pay for them, the poor and vulnerable are being kidnapped and their bodies are being chopped up and sold off in pieces. A young girl was taken out of Somalia, Africa and into Britain to have her organs removed and sold to desperate people in need (“Little”). According to New York Post, “In 2012, an adult woman was reported as the first case of a human brought to the UK by an organized gang with the intentions of removing her organs and selling them on” (“Little”). Cases like these make the world a cruel and inhumane place to want to live in. With presumed consent laws the Black market would most likely decrease in activity and human trafficking could be diminished as well. There is such a high demand for organs that scientists are attempting to transplant genetically modified animal organs into humans, in a process known as Xenotransplantation. This process opens the door for super viruses to cross from animals to humans creating a global health pandemic. Xenotransplantation is “the transplant of animal organs into a human being”. Many critics have opposed their opinions on this topic due to a large possibility of infecting the whole population, but trials are still taking place (Wan-Ho and Cummings). According to some scientific reports, there have been instances in with viruses have crossed from pig to human cells (Wan-Ho and Cummings). Also, humans inhibiting viruses from baboon livers, in which cases have ignored, making many believe that no viruses have been found (Wan-Ho and Cummings). The thought of viruses being a problem was sought out by Robin Weiss and his coworkers at the Institute of Cancer Research (Wan-Ho and Cummings). Weiss argues that a virus inhibits other human cells after completing the first cycle in human cells