Anatomical Gifts — Should Donors be Paid?

As of February 2, 2005, 87,306 individuals were on the waiting list for an organ transplant.  Each day, seventy transplants are performed and, because of the shortage of organs, sixteen people die.  Organ Donations Give Life, USA Today, Feb. 4, 2005, at 1A.

One idea to relieve this shortage of organs is to pay the donor.  As Dr. Arthur Matas explains, “[C]urrently everyone but the donor already benefits financially from the transplant (physicians, coordinators, hospitals, recipients).”  Deborah L. Shelton, Should We Be Allowed to Sell Organs?, Enquirer (Cincinnati, Ohio), May 22, 2005, at A10 (on-line version available at St. Louis Post-Dispatch).

The article discusses the ethical and practical problems of paying donors and suggests alternatives.