Organ Transplants for Prisoners free essay sample

In the article â€Å"Wanted, Dead or Alive? Kidney Transplants in Inmates Awaiting Execution†, Jacob M. Appel argues that, despite the criminal justice system’s view that death-row inmates deserve to die, they should be given the same opportunity to extend their life as anyone else. â€Å"The United States Supreme Court has held since 1976 that prison inmates are entitled to the same medical treatment as the free public† (645). â€Å"When it comes to healthcare, ‘bad people’ are as equal as the rest of us† (646). When someone is sentenced to execution it is decided by the criminal justice system, not the medical community.The justice system views these peoples’ social worth as so low that they deserve to die for the crimes they have committed. â€Å"The state’s determination of social worth only finds that the condemned prisoner no longer deserves life—a far higher bar than a determination that he or she is no longer worthy of healthcare prior to death†(646). In the medical community, the goal is to save lives. Appel also points out that even though kidney transplants do increase survival rates over dialysis, just because someone doesn’t get a transplant, this does not necessarily mean that they will die.He says that kidney transplants tend to be more of a life-enhancing surgery, as opposed to a life-extending surgery. On the argument that to give a kidney to someone who will die soon anyway is a waste of a perfectly good organ; Appel says this objection is invalid. A small percentage of death row inmates are ever actually executed, seventy-five percent of death sentences are appealed and overturned and that one in fifteen death row inmates is acquitted. Because of these statistics, Appel says that to ignore these peoples’ requests for kidney transplant would be morally wrong. Robert M. Sade’s article â€Å"The Prisoner’s Dilemma: Should Convicted Felons Have the Same Access to Heart Transplantation as Ordinary Citizens? † argues that whether or not criminals should receive heart transplants depends on who you ask. He goes on to pose the question to four separate entities; the organ procurement and transplantation network (OPTN), physicians, transplant centers, and prison officials. The OPTN says that just because someone is in prison doesn’t mean they should not be considered for an organ transplant, the â€Å"screening for all otential recipients should be done at the candidacy stage and once listed, all candidates should be eligible for equitable allocation of organs† (648). On the basis of social worth, physicians shouldn’t discriminate by using social value as criteria for medical decisions. Sade says that psychosocial factors may be used as selection criteria, however, because they might shed light on whether or not adequate social support systems exist for the transplant recipient. The prison sentence is payment for the crime; the prisoner owes nothing more to society, certainly not his or her life† (647). The transplant center brings up the issue of money. When a non-prisoner has a transplant operation, they fund the surgery with the help of insurance and public health programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Prisoners have neither private nor public insurance aside from what the prison system has in their budget, so this begs the question, â€Å"should the prison pay for a heart transplant for a convicted criminal? † The answer is no.Most prison systems can only afford to provide general health care, but not the large amount of funds needed for a heart transplant. Sade says the bill for aftercare of a prisoner’s heart transplant done in California in 2002 was around a million dollars. The final decision is with the prison system. The prison system’s only obligation is to provide room and board and general healthcare at a reasonable cost. Without sufficient funds (and it is safe to say there are not) the prison system and officials have reason enough to deny prisoners heart transplants.These two articles both address the question of whether a prisoner should be considered eligible for organ transplant, but their arguments vary for many reasons, primarily the organ in question, the status of the prisoner in question, and whether a prisoner is eligible for transplant consideration at all. Appel’s article is about kidney transplants and prisoners on death row. Appel says inmates have the same right to kidney transplant eligibility as any other citizen, no matter their social rank. He says that just because someone has been sentenced to die doesn’t mean their quality of life should be lowered before they are executed.It appears that Appel did in-depth research for his argument. He cites outside sources and has data to back up his argument that it is more cost-effective to perform transplant surgery instead of using dialysis treatment. Appel uses a few different ethical theories in support of his argument. He is utilitarian in his concern for cost-effectiveness, deontological in his aim at addressing the importance of good intentions and not consequences, and he also shows a preference for natural law in that he intends to preserve life.He embraces the moral principle of non-maleficence, â€Å"above all, do no harm†. Committing the logical fallacy of appealing to probability, he raises the level of doubt. He reminds us that only a small fraction of inmates are actually executed. Appealing to money, he explains that kidney transplants are much less expensive than dialysis. Appealing to pity, he makes us ask, â€Å"What if the death row inmate isn’t guilty? What if the inmate is never executed? What if he or she is exonerated of their charge and must continue life without good health? Sade talks about heart transplants for prisoners in general, not specific to death row inmates. Sade says no one has legal entitlement to healthcare in our country. Many factors go into deciding who receives a heart transplant and the final say lies with the prison system, because they are the ones who pay for the treatment. Sade says the prison system just cannot afford to provide funds for expensive heart transplant surgeries and aftercare, but it appears as though he pulled the number out of thin air, citing only one instance of a heart transplant in California, providing an estimated amount.This is a utilitarian point of view, giving power to the authoritative figures and not to the person in need of help. It could be argued that some logical fallacies are committed, appealing to authority, as it is a claim that something is true just because an â€Å"expert† said so (his source is not cited), and appealing to money in his argument that the transplant surgery is too expensive. Compared to Appel’s well-researched article, Sade does not play fair, seeming to ad opt paternalistic tendencies, hoping to sway the reader, â€Å"because I said so†.I view this issue from a Rossian standpoint. I think that it should be a decision made using intuition. I don’t think it should make a difference what specific organ is to be transplanted. I think a case-by-case basis â€Å"rule† should be applied to all prospective transplant organs, no matter the level of difficulty or cost for surgery. I think that if a person is eligible for a transplant of any kind, it is only fair that they be placed on the recipient list, however, if they are in prison, we should look more closely. If the prisoner is on death row, their case should be rejected.All non-death row prisoners should be given a fair chance at receiving the transplant organ. The reason I am specifying the inmates on death row is because in my opinion, these are the worst offenders. I feel that if the criminal justice system has decided that their crimes are so severe that they are to be executed as punishment, perhaps we should not step in and squander an organ that might be used to save the life of a person who has not been condemned to die for having been found guilty of committing a horrible crime.I feel that most law-abiding citizens would be pretty upset if they found out that someone who is on death row has received an organ transplant and not paid a dime for it. The reality of the situation is that our prisons appear to be unable to finance such an undertaking. I feel that it would be wasteful and unfair to ask taxpayers to fund a life-enhancing surgery for someone who has been convicted of a crime for which they stand to be executed.