Body Transplant Ethics

Submitted By Harrynguyen76C
Words: 2138
Pages: 9

Outline
I. Full Body Transplant as a Bad Idea
II. Ethical Loopholes in the Market Approach to Medical Transplant
III. Ethical Loopholes in the Committee Selection Approach
IV. Loopholes in the Lottery Approach to Full Body Transplant
V. Loopholes in the Customary Approach
VI. Conclusion

Full Body Transplant
Full Body Transplant as a Bad Idea
Canavero is an Italian neurosurgeon whose idea of full body transplant has elicited mixed reactions from medical professions and ethicists. The possibility of Canavero’s idea of carrying out a full body transplant by 2017 is under the watch of both medics and public across the world. However, the big question that emerges from this move is, ‘if a full body transplant is possible, will it be a good idea?’ This paper declares full body transplant an unethical idea that will violate many medical ethics. It is unfair to make tragic decisions that condemn people to death while others continue to live by their organs. The move will be medically inefficient. Ethical principles are founded on what is good and morally acceptable by the society. Boudreau and Somerville assert that making a choice on who will receive the full body transplant is an uphill task that will compromise medical ethics of sanctity of live, not harming, equality, and value of all persons . The criterion on how the process can be conducted is not clear. Will the full body transplant be given to the sickest patients, those who are most promising in recovery, those who come first, the most educated, the rich, young, or old?. Allowing this form of transplant might tempt medical practitioners to commercialize their profession by killing people intentionally, without consent from the person, so that they can exchange the killed person’s organs for money. Besides, this permission will bring the whole process of full body transplant to ethically wanting medical approaches such as rationing the available medical resources (Annas 189). Such approaches, which form the basis of this paper, include the market approach, the lottery approach, the committee selection approach, and the customary approach (Ertin 105). As the paper reveals, these approaches are not good since each of them poses major ethical loopholes in medicine field.
Ethical Loopholes in the Market Approach to Medical Transplant
The market approach to medical transplant stands on the premise that medical transplant will only be provided only to people who can afford to pay for it, either through personal savings or by private medical insurance (Boudreau and Somerville 8). The implication here is that for people to receive a full body transplant that Canavero talks about, they will have to be wealthy or have well-to-do people in their circles. Therefore, the rich class will live at the expense of the poor people. Although money and financial support will be a major factor in the process of body transplant that Canavero expects to take two years, pegging human life on money is unethical. Modern markets’ reliance on personal funds or private insurance covers is also unethical since most of the modern medical facilities such as life support machines, transplant technology, and medical personnel are funded with public funds. In his view, Ertin reveals how unethical it is for medical practitioners to attach medical care on financial ability (104). Fairness and equality are major foundations of medical ethics. Contravening the two aspects through full body transplant is not good. In the modern-day society, people pay medical bills through making public appeals or fund raising (Ertin 107). A full body transplant that takes more than one year requiring close medical monitoring afterward for symptoms of organ rejection and repression will definitely result in fund drives. Making public appeals for one to pay for medical bills is demeaning to the patient. Just like in many forms of transplant, these appeals revive the unethical notion that a price can be tagged on