Analyzing the Organ Transplantation

Organ Transplantation

Who owns donated organs according to the author? Why is it important to clarify ownership of donated organs?

With reference to the American context, cadaveric organs are not actually owned by the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS). UNOS is granted custody as well as control of organs, depending on the conditions placed on the organs by their donors. He obtains an analogy with charity trustees and claims that they are required to address and deal with the trust resources according to the terms of the trust as drafted by the settler. They are naturally a conditional gift for which the transplanters are legally considered as 'trustees' or 'custodians' (Cronin & Price, 2008). Even though this matches well with the concept of a 'gift of an organ' by the deceased individual, there is, however, significant negativity that surrounds the notion of body ownership, majorly as a function of issues associated with commerce.

The rights of persons to actually utilize their bodies for medical reasons, even following their death are protected by the law. It is through the virtue of this right that the Human Tissue Act 2004 empowers an individual to agree to or decline to organ donation. The conventional rule has nonetheless been that the human body is not property. In common law, it is properly-established that corpse cannot be a property (Hilhorst, 2005).

Explain briefly the material criteria for a just organ allocation.

Frequently, it is remarked that organs are public resources to be supplied by the suitable agencies on the State's behalf. It is in this particular milieu that the concerns of equity and efficacy in distribution emerge. However, the question that ought to be asked is from where does such dispositional power over organs emerge? The answer to this question might probably be just obtained from the ownership of such human materials (Childress, 2001).

Our unwillingness to deal with the subject of if our body is property has led to unclear frameworks of donation. We now find ourselves having to fight with why a particular collection of circumstances stands for a framework whereby organ donation is capable of legitimately taking place and yet another same collection of circumstances does not (Cronin & Price, 2008).

2. What ethically relevant criteria must be used for admission to waiting lists?

A lot of nations experience an organ donation system, which totally separates the ethical foundations between living and cadaveric organ donation. It is claimed that cadaveric organ donation ought to have an unbiased means of distributing the organs to the recipients. This implies that the preference of the organ's recipient cannot be determined by the individual that died or his next of kin. The organ shall instead be given to the individual on the waiting list created by the controlling body for organ procurement. This situation, however, differs with living organ donation, whereby the donor has the right to decide who should be the recipient of his/her organs (Bramstedt, Florman & Miller, 2005). While on one hand, continuing the impartiality in organ donation helps prevent discrimination in the process (no conditional donation), such a process would compromise the patient's autonomy by denying them the chance to make ethically decent conditions on who should receive their organs when they are about to die. This kind of system will make individuals less willing to donate organs. A more partial organ donation system will be more preferable for such cases (Childress, 2001).

3. What ethically relevant criteria must be used to determine which candidate should receive a particular organ?

Even though it is permissible for individuals to specify who will receive their organs under the state laws, which are based on the Federal Uniform Anatomical Gift Act, the popular way to do it is to distribute cadaveric organs based on the concepts of fairness and justice, which will mean that the organs will be donated to those in most need (Childress, 2001; Cronin & Price, 2008). In cases where conditional donation is allowed, it is likely that these two principles will be compromised. Many have provided good reasons for organs of the deceased to be considered public property and to be immediately made available for transplantation through a fair and equitable organ allocation system. Denying those with the greatest medical need an organ has resulted in many untimely deaths across the nation. But there is also no way that individuals can be forced to donate their organs in a way that will hinder their rights to liberty and to decide their own fates or what will be done with them upon their deaths (Cronin & Price, 2008).