Research in the field of medicine has greatly revolutionized the practice of delivering quality care. Several studies have introduced new and efficient methods in the diagnosis and treatment of various medical conditions with the major one in the latest years being the possibility of organ transplantation among patients. With the number of people who die annually due to failing organs being high, the concept of organ transplant came as a relief to many. As a result, patients with similar problems have a promise of living due to the possibility of getting another organ from a donor. Despite the numerous advantages of organ transplant and its contribution to the field of medicine, its application has brought about considerable ethical concerns within both the medical field and the public. The following study examines two issues of follow-up care for donor patients and organ trafficking in organ transplantation. It explores the ethical issues surrounding the two organ transplant issues about the contemporary practices of organ transplant.
People who voluntarily chose to donate their organs to other need considerable measures of follow-up after donation. To begin with, they need medical follow-up. Most often, organ donation is accompanied by other medical and health challenges that need considerable care from medical practitioners. The donors need to be taken care and consistently monitored by doctors as they heal until their state of health is restored. Moreover, organ donors need psychological support during their healing process. Many of the organ donors face immense anxiety immediately after their donation, as they are sure of their future state of health after the exercise. In extreme cases, this may lead to mental or psychological disorders among donors (Gordon, 2015). Therefore, it is important that the donors get the necessary psychological help after their organ donation.
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Whereas the need to follow up on organ donor is evident, it has not been given the weight it deserves. This gives right to several ethical concerns. Those who guide people to undertake organ donation have a moral duty to ensure that such people get adequate follow-up services (Gordon, 2015). Duty-based ethics outlines that people have specific duties that they need to accomplish at individual levels. Such duties are morally and virtuously binding on individual even when they are not related to the character of virtue or evaluated based on the outcomes of right or wrong. Therefore, the morals obligate humanity to undertake their roles and duties because such duties are in themselves an ethical requirement (Chappell, 2014). In the context of follow up for organ donors, medical practitioners who conduct organ transplants have a virtuous responsibility to follow up care on such patients owing to their duty-based ethics. Moreover, healthcare facilities who organize for such transplant equally are morally obligated to organize for follow up care including counseling therapy for organ donors.
Despite the duty-based ethical requirement to follow up and care of organ donors, few hospitals and healthcare providers who engage in organ transplant give such care a priority. Many organ donors have reported having been prematurely dismissed from healthcare facilities where the transplant occurred while others have reported not having received counseling therapy to deal with the anxiety problem after the care. As such, the healthcare practitioners, as well as the healthcare facilities engaged in organ transplantation, have largely ignored their duty based ethical obligation to follow up and support the donors (Millar & Hsu, 2016). On the contrary, they focus their efforts and attention to the person who received the organ to ensure that they recover.
Secondly, organ donors have a right to return to their normal life as soon as possible. As human beings, such donors have a right to live a happy life irrespective of the fact that they donated their organs. However, health complications and anxieties that accompany organ donation make it impossible for them to experience a normal life, as they ought to. Follow up care for donor patients enable them to recover quickly and hence continue with their normal and happy life. Consequently, Right based ethics obligates the healthcare workers who engage in organ transplants as well as healthcare facilities that offer organ transplant services to ensure that donor patients return to their normal state as quickly as possible in order to enjoy their rights to a happy life (Roberts, 2016). By failing to follow up and support the donor patients, the healthcare practitioners act in a way that is unethical going by the requirements of right based morality.
The possibilities of organ transplantation have also formed a breeding ground for organ trafficking. Organ trafficking has become rampant to the extent that it has caught the attention of the international community. The famously known Istanbul declaration of 2008 was the first international declaration to define organ trafficking and hence put the issue into perspective. Among other things, this declaration defined organ trafficking as transferring, recruiting, and transporting an in individual’s organ by means of threat, coercion, fraud, abduction, or deception where the third party receives payment for the facilitation of such organ transfer without the free will and informed consent of the organ donor (Howard & Cornell, 2016). People have exploited organ trafficking in order to gain financial benefits at the expense of the donor. Therefore, organ trafficking has become a critical ethical issue arising from the possibility of an organ transplant.
Organ trafficking brings into disrepute the moral character of the people engaged in it. From the virtue ethics perspective, moral behavior is largely tied to the morality of the outcome of such behavior. It reflects the individual character and moral standing. As such, virtue ethics requires that people act in a way that reflects virtue and positive moral standing in them (Chappell, 2014). The controversy of organ trafficking can largely be understood from the concept virtue ethics. The people who undertake organ trafficking appear to have less care for humanity and majorly concerned with the financial gain. There increasing involvement in organ trafficking in the recent past has been attributed to the high financial potential that this illicit trade carries. People who engage in organ trafficking are mainly interested in getting money rather than creating a personal image of virtue and morality (Ramos & McCauley, 2018). From a virtue ethics perspective, the people engaged in organ trafficking cannot be considered to be virtues. Therefore, the act of organ trafficking occasioned by the possibilities of organ transplant has brought about major virtue ethics concerns.
Secondly, the act of organ trafficking minimizes wellbeing of the victims of such trafficking. In many instances, obtaining organs from individuals is not preceded with an evaluation of the person to determine whether the person is fit to live without the organ in question. As such, the act greatly compromises the well-being of individuals. Moreover, the victims of organ trafficking suffer great trauma. They are psychologically disturbed about the act both before and after the organ has been obtained: the act minimizes the psychological well-being of an individual. In 2016, the Pakistani police were reported to have rescued 24 people captured and detained by people who intended to obtain their kidneys in a classic case of organ trafficking (Howard & Cornell, 2016). The people were greatly terrified and emotionally disturbed when they were rescued. This example demonstrates how organ trafficking minimizes good and wellbeing of individuals.
Ethicality of such an action can best be evaluated from the framework of the utilitarianism. From this perspective, an act is considered ethical if it maximizes good and wellbeing of people. Conversely, it minimizes the good and wellbeing of the people can be considered unethical. Therefore, organ trafficking is unethical because it minimizes both the physical as well as the psychological well-being of the victims (Ramos & McCauley, 2018). In the Pakistan example highlighted, the attempted organ trafficking had deprived the people of psychological well-being. Therefore, the act of organ trafficking that has largely been made possible by organ transplant is unethical and hence puts into disrepute the ethicality of the entire process. It is important to address this ethical concern when forging a way forward for organ transplant within the medical field.
Overall, various ethical issues accompany the concept if organ transplantation. Although it has helped to save many lives, it attracts controversies especially on follow up care for donors as well as organ trafficking. Many healthcare practitioners and healthcare facilities offering organ transplantation services ignore to follow up on donors and ensure that they completely recover. This practice is unethical from both a duty as well as the right-based ethics perspectives. Moreover, organ transplant has yielded the practice of organ trafficking, which is unethical when evaluated from the virtue ethics and utilitarian frameworks.
References
Chappell, T. (2014). Theories of ethics, overview. Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics, 6 (8), 343-353.
Gordon, E. J. (2015). Ethical considerations in live donor transplantation. Current Opinion in Organ Transplantation, 18 (2), 235-240.
Howard, R. J., & Cornell, D. L. (2016). Ethical issues in organ procurement and transplantation. Bioethics - Medical, Ethical and Legal Perspectives, 7 (4), 123-135.
Millar, M., & Hsu, D. T. (2016). Can healthcare workers reasonably question the duty to care whilst healthcare institutions take a reactive (rather than proactive) approach to infectious disease risks? Public Health Ethics, 5 (2), 87-96.
Ramos, H. C., & McCauley, J. (2018). Ethical issues in organ transplantation. Contemporary Kidney Transplantation, 12 (7), 343-353.
Roberts, R. C. (2016). Varieties of virtue ethics. Virtue Ethics, 17-34.
