Zambrano Organ Allocation Analysis

Responsibility Ought to be Considered in Organ Allocation
Organ allocation. A process in which someone, somewhere decides where to place people on the transplant list. Many factors must be considered as organs are a scarce resource. Such factors must include, life style, age, prognosis, other comorbidities and most importantly the cause for the transplant. To explore these ideas, I will focus on the Zambrano article introduced in class. In this article, the author explores the argument of responsibility. The argument of responsibility states that a person should be placed lower on a priority list for receiving an organ if they have caused the illness. Zambrano uses the example of an alcoholic who is now in need of a new liver because of the
Let’s pause for a moment and define the alcoholic used in this example. There are two different types of alcoholics. Those who are productive during the day and contribute to life and drink at night. Then there are the kind who drink all day, rely on others for their housing, food, and other necessities. I think the distinction here is important. I think our argument relies on the person’s contribution to society. I will elaborate on this later in the paper. Returning to the case of the alcoholic. When a person cannot feed themselves because they are consumed by alcohol, how can we trust they will take care of their new organ. Zambrano answer’s this question stating, for his argument, the alcoholic would be one who is recovering and no longer drinks. My response to this is the fact that addiction is a very real thing. These people may be “cured” from their alcoholism but how do we know they are for the rest of their life? How do we know they won’t turn back to alcohol? I don’t know that we can say 100 percent they won’t go back. Alcoholics make a choice every day. They make the choice to pick up a beer or a fifth or a pint. They choose this. Said from a former addict, “I made the choice every day to pick [it] up.” Now this person is someone who I know dearly. I believe even if addicts feel it is their choice, then it truly is. The alcoholic decides to prioritize alcohol over their body’s
I deem it necessary for many life circumstances to be taken into consideration when deciding who gets placed where on the list. Of those circumstances, whether or not you caused the issue should be investigated. Should it be the end-all decision? I don’t think so, but I don’t have the answer for that. Zambrano wrote a paper explaining how one could believe a firefighter was responsible for their lung cancer. I have attempted in this paper to refute that idea. A firefighter’s lung cancer is merely a biproduct of their job. They do not choose to walk into smoke. They have proper equipment to mitigate the risk. In addition, they may not know what they’ve walked into until the exposure has already occurred. I have shown in this article that the firefighter is necessary in our community; they contribute to their society and attempt to make it a safer place. Meanwhile the alcoholic decided to pick up that first drink. The chose not to go to a program early on. They chose to continue drinking. Their alcoholism is not a biproduct of anything. It is simply their choice and their responsibility. When deciding if the alcoholic should be placed above or below the firefighter, the act of responsibility ought to be