The Financial Arguments For The Legalization Of An Organ Market

The financial argument : decrease costs and invest in saving lives.

The financial argument in favour of an organ market is really important and worth considering. As a matter of fact, the legalisation of an organ market would propose great economic consequences. Such advantages are explained in the report proposed by Steiner about transplantation of organs, who uses the data coming from Arthur Matas’s publication in the American Journal of Transplantation. We’ll use both analysis, dealing with kidney transplantation. Generally, for a person suffering from a kidney disease, there exists two possibilities : dialysis treatments or getting a graft. It goes without saying that if not getting a graft, the only remaining solution remains to use

About the legalisation of an organ market, two main countries have enforced such a revolutionary “market” : Iran and the Philippines. Here, we’ll see how it works in Iran and we’ll observe the consequences, to finally see, in concrete results, if yes the legalisation of an organ market would be a great idea. 4 main positive points have been noticed from the legalisation of an organ market in Iran : the waiting list has disappeared ; the outcomes for whom who paid to receive an organ are not different for those who received it from donation ; relatives still give their organs ; and the number of organ donation has increased from deceased people. In other words, we can observe only advantages coming from the legalisation of an organ market in Iran.

Figure 3, Annual number of renal transplants performed in Iran from 1984 to 2005, from Ahad J.Ghods and Shekoufeh Savaj,"Iranian Model of Paid and Regulated Living-Unrelated Kidney Donation." Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology 1 Nov. 2006. Web. 9 Nov.

The government is the main intermediary, and everyone has equal access to organs. Indeed, contrary to what have said the opponents of an organ market, not only the rich will be able to buy organs ! As mentioned by Ghods and Savaj, “All transplant candidates who are poor receive renal transplantation. The elimination of renal transplant waiting lists means that all patients with ESRD, either rich or poor, have equal access to renal transplant facilities; otherwise, many poor patients would remain on the renal transplant waiting list”. Indeed, the main role of government and charitable organisations cannot be denied, and allow anyone needing an organ, regardless his/her economic conditions, to get an organ.

Lastly, concerning the survival rates, they remain extremely positive, as underlined in the following figure.

Figure 4 : Results of 1499 living-unrelated donor renal transplants in Hashemi Nejd Hospital-Tehran, Ghods, Dr. Ahad J., and Shekoufeh Savaj. "Iranian Model of Paid and Regulated Living-Unrelated Kidney Donation." Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology 1 Nov. 2006. Web. 9 Nov.