Against a Regulated Market in Human Organs: Ethical Arguments and Ethnographic Insights from the Organ Trade in Bangladesh

While organ transplantation is often highly successful in saving lives, it has created an illicit, but thriving, trade in human organs, including kidneys, livers, and corneas sourced from living bodies of the desperate poor. Based on challenging ethnographic fieldwork with seventy organ sellers, alo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Human organization 2018-12, Vol.77 (4), p.323-335
Main Author: Moniruzzaman, Monir
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anthropology
Bioethics
Biological organs
Black markets
Blood & organ donations
Coercion
Corruption
Cultural anthropology
Deception
Donations
Ethics
Ethnography
Exploitation
Field study
Fieldwork
Human rights
Institutionalization
International organizations
Justice
Kidneys
Merchants
Microfinance
Opacity
Organ transplantation
Philosophers
Physicians
Qualitative research
Rights
Roth, Alvin
Scarcity
Shortages
Slavery
Suffering
Surgeons
Task forces
Trade
Trafficking
Transparency
Transplants
Transplants & implants
Violence
Vulnerability
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Summary:While organ transplantation is often highly successful in saving lives, it has created an illicit, but thriving, trade in human organs, including kidneys, livers, and corneas sourced from living bodies of the desperate poor. Based on challenging ethnographic fieldwork with seventy organ sellers, along with a group of recipients, brokers, and doctors, this article explains how organ trade results in violence, exploitation, and suffering against the vulnerable, who sell their live organs on the black market of Bangladesh. In opposition to allowing a "regulated organ market," I argue that such a market is not a magic bullet that by itself would eliminate deception, coercion, and corruption that exist in the illegal trade of vital organs, nor would it ensure equity, rights, and justice to organ sellers. Instead, a regulated market would exacerbate, institutionalize, and normalize violence, exploitation, and suffering against impoverished populations. I, therefore, conclude that organ trade needs to be condemned, as there are alternative ways to resolve organ shortages. I suggest that government authorities must enact stringent laws, ensure ethical transparency, and encourage cadaveric donations to combat organ trafficking worldwide.
ISSN:0018-7259
1938-3525
DOI:10.17730/0018-7259.77.4.323