Communities in Third World Countries
Introduction
Poverty has stricken a great number of population in the world today. Third world countries in particular are assumed to take on a greater toll on the effects of such condition. Practically, people have become more accustomed to living in such an undermining situation. Along with this matter, the said individuals have also become accustomed to dealing with matters in their lives through sacrificing particular aspects of their existence in exchange for survival. One of the most striking issues that could be identified along with this matter is the fact that poor families do so much to just get by each day. Sadly, people become more and more convinced that having daily sustenance is more important an actually saving for what could happen in the future. The ways these individuals or families to survive each day mark how they perceive life as a whole. Their willingness to sacrifice everything for current survival imposes that they are willing to lose what they have at present just so to survive another day.
One of the disturbing options that most poor families take into account is organ selling. This industry has already grown by several percentage ever since the time it has been reported to have started out. It could be analyzed that somehow, poverty has changed the perception of the society towards safety and health-security. The most common organ that is being donated is the kidney. Each individual has two kidneys. Both kidneys play a great role in keeping the process of the body’s filtering operation. When one is taken out, there is a good tendency that a person could survive with one kidney alone, however, chances are, the life expectancy of such individual is shortened.
In this discussion, a focus on the rampant selling of body-organs among poverty-stricken communities shall be examined. Understandably, this research shall dig into the details as to how authorities should be alarmed especially for the sake of creating a more distinctive process that could assist in alleviating the situation, thus giving the people a better chance to controlling their situation and becoming more effective in determining how poverty could be dealt with, without the necessity of poor families being subjected to organ selling options as their last resort.
Background of Issue
When human survival hangs by a thread, it could not be denied that there are instances when people would think that they have no other choice but to embrace the concept of sacrifice to be able to get through a day. This is what human living is dependent upon, especially among those who live by meager-to-no earnings at all (Scheper-Hughes, 2007). Notably, the trade of human organs between third world and first world countries happen in a rather secluded and protected market. Elitists [or the rich families] who have a certain need for an organ go through the depths of illegal trade just so to save the life of a loved one. Particularly this situation has already become rampant through time, nevertheless, instead of controlling the situation, statistics prove that the industry grows annually.
This staggering truth has brought about a sense of urgency among human-rights supporters. What makes this exchange of human organs rather definitive especially in making a distinct impact on how the world identifies well with the idea of sacrificing a life to save another. Ethical issues arise when the process of trading organs occur. The truth is that most of the time, the organs asked to be traded from the donors have natural duplicates in the human body. The donors [usually those coming from poverty-stricken families] are the ones who are risking their lives, but are noted to have no specific argument on the matter as they know they are doing this to save their own family’s survival. Relatively, poor families hang on by the balance; they are more than willing to take the challenge to save themselves and their families from starvation. Practically, such option has brought many individuals into a thought that determinably questions the ethical consideration of those handling the trade-system itself.
Rationale of Problem
There are instances when becoming a donor for organ transplant is allowed and considered heroic on the part of the one providing the said source of organs. Notably though, it could be understood that often times, there exists some middlemen who handle the trade-exchange accordingly. This approach insists on the fact that the system involves huge chunks of monetary exchange usually including price haggling between the buyers of the organ and the middlemen [the traders] (Moazam, et al, 2009). With such thought in mind, it could be realized that the ones to receive the least pay in the system would be the donors themselves.
Given the fact that at least 78% of the trade-offs happen illegally, the organs being passed on for transplant are usually questionable in quality and integrity. Due to the fact that the donors have not been fully worked up nor have been fully checked medically, the integrity of the organs they share for transplant becomes questionable. Notably, it is with the occurrence of these instances that complications and health issues develop especially during the actual transplant operations.
The fact that the system has already become a thriving business in the field of international trade; even though it does happen under the table, the situation has already become a problem of the society; one that is hard to beat and hard to respond to especially if the occurrence of poverty is not being fully controlled by administrators accordingly. What makes such problem hard to control is the fact that the donors see nothing wrong with what they are doing. Their willingness to push forward for their survival midst the sacrifices that they know they have to pull through makes these individuals more extensively concerned on how they are going to survive each day than they are concerned on how they are following legal sanctions about the matter (Nullis-Kapp, 2004). With this thinking process, humans have become more accustomed to taking chances than with playing safe. It could not be denied that it is because of this matter that authorities, even in the international field are having a hard time taking into account what needs to be done.
Being fully strategic in controlling the situation is necessary. Obviously, legal sanctions have not worked fully for the emergence of organ trade. Sadly, at times, even the legal sanctions are bent fully to make amends on how the world accepts organ trade. The people who have the right amount of money to pay for the organs being traded in the international market often cannot be controlled accordingly especially if they have big connections in the industry. The value for life has diminished and the value for business has improved especially in the face of the developing commercial culture in the world at present.
Arguments of the Problem
Sacrificing a life to save another; this is what most middlemen tend to use to justify their acts. However, the fact that there is another life being lost in the long run does not justify such an option of serving the needs of those who have the money. Regulating the transplant procedures and options given to those who might be needing such an operation is expected to help in alleviating the situation. Nevertheless, it does not mean that such matter could be fully proofed to make sure that it would provide the required fangs of the legal system to control the act and to protect the lives of those stricken by poverty. True to its sense, the solution to this problem accounts for more than just one single act from the authorities concerned. It requires full attention on how the target individuals are educated on what organ trading is about and how it could affect them as people (Griffin, 2007). Relatively, such education is expected to make a determinable course of understanding that could make them think twice before they engage in such a trade.
Conclusion
What makes organ trading scrupulous is the business that exists alongside it. People who take advantage of others are always in the middle of the exchange of values. The money that is given to donors is subdivided into several parts that specifically serve as salary for the middlemen. This act ought to stop, and the business behind it ought to be controlled. However, without social cooperation and community cooperation, the battle against scrupulous donor trade may not fully stop as desired.
References
Griffin, Anne (March 2007). "Iranian Organ Donation: Kidneys on Demand". British Medical Journal 334 (7592): 502–505.
Nullis-Kapp, C. (2004). Organ Trafficking and Transplantation Pose New Challenges 82 (9th ed.). World Health Organization.
Scheper-Hughes, N. (2002). "The Ends of the Body: Commodity Fetishism and the Global Traffic in Organs". SAIS Review 22 (1): 61–80.
Shimazono, Yosuke (2007). "The State of the International Organ Trade: A Provisional Picture Based on Integration of Available Information". Bulletin of the WHO 85.
Stempsey, William E. (2000). "Organ Markets and Human Dignity: On Selling Your Body and Soul". Christian Bioethics: Non-Ecumenical Studies In Medical Morality 6 (2): 195–204.
Moazam, F., R. M. Zaman, et al. (2009). Conversations with Kidney Vendors in Pakistan: An ethnographic study, Hastings Centre Report.
Scheper-Hughes, Nancy (2007). "The Tyranny of the Gift: Sacrificial Violence in Living Donor Transplants". American Journal of Transplantation 7 (3): 507–511.
