Position Paper
Moniek van Aarle
May 11, 2018
HLTH 511
Issues in Public and Community Health
Liberty University
Master of Public Health Program
Word Count: 1070
2
Position Paper
PART I
The medical world has developed a lot with the success rate of organ transplantations1.
These improvements have been going very vast, whereas the availability of transplantation
organs did not increase which causes a lot of problems with the high demand and extremely high
costs of the transplantations. This paper first looks at organ transplantations from a Christian
perspective, then the occurring money problems and issues with how to divide the available
organs. The world needs to change with the medical progress, so a lot of the problems can be
avoided and even solved.
PART II
Organ transplantations nowadays can be seen as a miracle from God, where He created
the possibility for people to ultimately love their brothers and sisters by providing their own
organs to another child of God. The Bible is full of verses that show the importance of loving
another and share with each other: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and
hate your enemy’ but I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”
(Matthew 5:43-44) and Romans 13:9 “For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,
You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are
summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”.
An argument from the Bible that often is used to disapprove organ transplantations is 1
Corinthians 6:19-20 “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within
you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So,
glorify God in your body.” which can be interpreted in two very different ways2. Opponents
interpretation on this verse is that you cannot ‘harvest’ your body since it was a gift from God.
2
3
Position Paper
Supporters will use this verse to point out that the body is not your own, people should treat it
like a temple they get to live in during their time on Earth. Sharing your organs and saving
someone’s live will not only show love to the other person while at the same time it will not
harm your spirit who was living in your body (the temple) and will go to heaven without his/her
body: “I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the
perishable inherit the imperishable” (1 Corinthians 15:50).
PART III
Nowadays, almost everyone agrees that organ transplantations are morally and ethically
correct to perform on persons who are in need of a health operation. The problem that has been
arising that there is a shortage on the availability for organs available for transplantations. This
imbalance causes a lot of questions about how to increase the number of organs that is available
as well the question of how to divide the organs that are available between all the people who are
desperately in need of an organ transplantation1.
A special group of individuals are people without any medical insurance to cover the high
costs of a transplantations and long waiting times. A transplantation can cost between $30,000
for the cornea till $1.4 million for a hearth transplantation, without calculating for the chance that
the transplantation will fail and a second one is necesarry3. It especially gets interesting when a
case about a prisoner in California who gets paid by California State for his surgery, lifelong
medicine and the medical checkups comes out in the news4. People are furious about the fact that
lawful ‘good’ people are not able to receive a transplant caused by a lack of money to pay for it,
while at the same time a criminal is receiving his transplantation heart.
3
4
Position Paper
The Eight Amendment of the Constitution ‘forced’ the California prison to pay for the
prisoner’s transplantation because it guarantees that people who are incarcerated will not be
subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. By denying the prisoner the heart transplantation
procedure they are not providing adequate medical care, which is seen as illegal. This makes that
inmates have a Constitutional right that regular people do not have, which sounds very
contradictive when you think about one of the purposes of a prison as withholding certain rights.
The law maybe need to be more specific about certain amounts of money you need to spend on a
prisoners’ health, however this is a really hard question where humans can easily cross the line.
PART IV
As discussed in part III of this article, there is another problem currently with organ
transplantations. There are not enough organs available to supply everyone who is in need for
one, which leaves the society with a hard and difficult decision. Dr. Mark Foreman provides
various possibilities about how to decide which system should be used to distribute the organs
with all the different benefits and disadvantage of the systems. Currently, the system works with
several rankings on how severe patient needs the transplantation and the severest cases will go
first. This way most lives will be saved because when people are in life dangerous situations,
they will be the first one to receive a call and to undergo the lifesaving transplantation surgery.
However, sometimes it will not be very clear which case is more severe which can lead to
personal favoring by the doctor or the donor. A specific diagnosis can be worth a lot in this
system and the pressure can be extremely high for a doctor to exaggerate the situation of the
patient to increase the patients’ changes on receiving a donor organ by a higher ranking.
4
5
Position Paper
Only looking at the severity definitely has its downsides, for example two people are in
the same need qua severity for a heart transplantation. One of them is a 20-year-old with an
excellent health and a good life expectancy after the surgery, whereas the other person is 88 years
old with a life expectancy of only 3 years. Morally a lot of people will choose to provide the
heart to the 20-year-old, however it will be more difficult if the young adult would have more
health problems or if the older person was 50 years instead of 88. Making these decisions can be
very hard and should always be made by a professional independent group of people. If this
decision should be made at all, because using a random lottery between these groups could also
be an option.
Bibliography
1. Liberty University. Presentation: Organ Transplantation.
https://download.liberty.edu/courses/vp3sv.mp4. Accessed May 5, 2018.
2. GotQuestions.org. What does the Bible say about organ donation? GotQuestions.org.
https://www.gotquestions.org/organ-donation.html. Published February 21, 2018.
Accessed May 5, 2018.
3. Here's What Every Organ in the Body Would Cost to Transplant. Fortune.
http://fortune.com/2017/09/14/organ-transplant-cost/. Published September 15, 2017.
Accessed May 6, 2018.
4. Munson R, Lague I. Intervention and Reflection: Basic Issues in Bioethics. Australia:
Cengage Learning; 2017.
5
6
Position Paper
POSITION PAPER GRADING RUBRIC
Student: Moniek van Aarle – L28969869
Criteria Points
Possible
Points
Earned Instructor’s Comments
PART I
Provides a concise “opening” summarizing
the views of the paper.
5
PART II
Identifies the clear Christian position on the
donation and allocation of human organs for
transplantation
25
PART III
Explains candidate priority and precendence
when it comes to transplantation.
25
PART IV
Outlines an ethical system of the allocation of
organs.
25
Proper spelling, grammar, flow, and clarity are
used. 10
Formatting (current APA or AMA), length,
assignment requirements 5
This grading rubric is attached at the
bottom of submitted paper. 5
Total 100
6
Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
