Commercialization of organ transplant

Commercialization of Organ Transplant
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In the UK for instance, about one thousand patients died while in the waiting list for organ donations while three thousand others received transplants between the year 2006 and 2007 (Wilkinson, 2011). In the US the median time that patients spend on the waiting list is estimated to be nearly 3 years (Knoll, 2008). By 2102, the supply of organ donations on any given day is three thousand and three hundred persons while the demand is at one hundred and fourteen thousand persons (Park, 2012). The supply of organs for transplants is far below the demand and it is illegal for person in the US to sell their organs. Many patients requiring organ transplants often acquire them from deceased patients and relatives. The transplant system in the health industry is therefore entirely dependent on persons' altruistic gestures (Hausleben, 2013). Commercializing organ transplants has been proposed as a feasible way to solve the problem of chronic shortage of organs for transplantation (Wilkinson, 2011).
One argument for the sale of transplants is that competent and independent adults have a reasonable right to use their bodies in ways they deem fit. This notion applies particularly where their activities have no effect on third parties. This argument for commercialization indicates that in the absence of strong opposition, people should exercise their right to sell part of their bodies. Another argument for commercialization centers on the premise of saving lives. This argument espouses that selling an organ to achieve the end of resolving the chronic shortage is defensible (Wilkinson, 2011).
Another argument for commercialization equates the activity to other equally risky or even more risky activities such as risky labor. They cite examples such as coal mining, fire-fighting, military service as dangerous labor that is often times more risky than selling one's organ. They ...