Case Study: Who Owns Your Body Parts

Who Owns Your Body Parts ?

These last few decades have seen a huge spreading of the illegal organ trade all around the world. It becomes one of the most preoccupying situation for the government of many countries as this illegal trade touches almost all the world population. In fact, rich countries are used to take advantages of poor countries because they do not have enough organs for people on the waiting list and need their organs for transplantations. However, for some time now there have been many worries especially about the shortage of organs, which represents a significant percentage of deaths of people on the waiting list. The problem is that too many people die due to the lack of supplies compare to the demand for organs such as
Indeed, some might start killing to then steal the victims’ organs and resell them at a high price. As a result, no one could be asking questions about the origins of the organ as it is legal. People would consider killing as an actual lucrative. For instance, a boy was murdered but the crime was disguised as a drug overdose. In fact, his mother could not believe the conclusions the police came to and started her own investigation, “in her opinion he was the victim of organ traffickers” (Blindel, 2013, Para 4) since her son was not an addict. Moreover, examinations revealed that the pancreas and the heart were not part of the body anymore. In brief, traffickers kill and take out organs of their victims to resell them. If a lucrative organ trade was legal, no one could punish them. Furthermore, people would challenge the legalization of organ sales because they would think that it could profit more to wealthier people than to the poor. In fact, only those who could afford organs would get them. The rich only, could have the advantage of receiving organs while the poor could only give them in order to get money. Many people believe that legalizing organ sales would increase the exploitation of the poor and the rate of murder, but legalizing the trade could also allow hospitals to know exactly the origin of organs and also regulate the market. Moreover, people have a right to their own body and they should be able to decide what they want to do with it. In fact, this is why they wonder why organ sales are illegal while other transplantations are not. Take the example of donors of blood, semen or also volunteers for medical trials. This kind of donation is not only legal, but the donors are also oftentimes compensated whereas organ donors are not. Therefore, this principle should be the same as for blood or semen as for