The Issue of Body Parts Black Market in China: The Organ Brokers Essay

Introduction

Globally, hospitals and home-based care facilities are full of sick people requiring new organs to survive. However, the consequential ethical dynamics involving life’s sacred nature make access to these organs hard in many states. For example, many people on the U.S.’s body parts transplant ‘waiting list’ die daily due to conditions curable through homeopathic operations. The lack of a legal system governing the trade, donation, or sale of human organs causes many complications. Moreover, legally acquired organs hardly meet half of the available transplantation demand worldwide. The matter leads many people with patients requiring operations to source organs from illegal bases. A crucial player in the illicit organs acquisition projects is the so-called organ broker, whose work is to link donors or organ sources to beneficiaries. The point that many deals involving the broker encompass unethically acquired body parts makes the party a criminal. The following discussion uses conditions such as the intentional harming of others, the perpetuation of terrorism acts, corruption promotion, and objectification of poor peoples’ bodies to prove the criminality of organ agents’ activities.

Main body

The case of Chinese doctors incarcerated for unlawful organ gathering forms the basis of this argumentative account. Lau (2020) describes the dishonest involving at least six high-profile Chinese medics who used illegal practices to deliver body parts to the nation’s black market for years. According to the source, the specialists mischievously draw body parts from accident victims and cerebral hemorrhage patients by deceiving the relatives of the deceased into believing they are making sanctioned organ contributions. Some of the recovered organs from the dead bodies include kidneys and livers. The allegation maintains that the implicated doctors exercised the illegal practice between 2017 and 2018, stealing body parts from at least eleven bodies within the Anhui province (Lau, 2020). Therefore, the matter reveals organ brokers as the primary players in the body parts trafficking circle, ascertaining the lots’ criminality.

The deal begins with the hospital head’s visitation to families of the deceased and persuading them to sign papers approving the donation of their loved one’s tissues. The consenting groups then sign fake accord forms, permitting the criminal to trade with wrongly acquired human organs. The process occurs secretly and mainly at night, revealing the brokers’ involvement in body parts trafficking. Furthermore, Lau (2020) purports that the doctors never provide the donor’s donation records to the appropriate provincial or national organ donation administrative centers, making it hard for families to trace their contributions to the national health system. Another critical facet of the case concerns the issuance of hefty bribes to concerned family members to silence them, something familiar under illicit deeds, where one fears being caught. Accordingly, this case involves registered doctors who violate the oath of service for personal gains, making the people serving as organs’ agents real lawbreakers.

Several conditions exist to determine a criminal or a party that engages in crimes. The present paper thus applies several criteria to prove the criminality of organ brokers, based on Lau’s (2020) case. The first condition linking organs’ agents to criminality is the brokers’ deliberate hurting of other people. Consequently, in this case, hurting takes at least two forms, physical and emotional pain suffered by the victims and their relatives. As per Lau’s (2020) report, the Chinese doctors acting as organ brokers target car crash victims and individuals suffering from severe brain damage. While the specialists do not cause the accidents, the individuals have the responsibility to help people in critical conditions to heal as per their professional obligation, according to the five basic treatment principles.

However, the Chinese medics’ focus on the dead bodies from car crashes implies the likelihood of ignoring victims in critical conditions to fulfill their personal desires. Neglecting such victims amounts to causing pain, which is typical for criminals. Moreover, targeting Hemorrhagic stroke patients for body organs extraction also suggests the doctors’ deliberate cause of pain to individuals. According to Ren et al. (2019), patients exhibiting severe conditions such as fatal brain injuries experience serious pain that makes them dependent on physicians for survival. Such indicates the serious impact of a doctor’s negligence on the patients suffering from this agonizing condition. By choosing this category of patients, the Chinese illegal organ brokers willingly purpose to cause pain that leads to eventual deaths that benefit the professionals personally.

Lastly, deserting the emotional pain among the relatives of the deceased while decoying them to sign fake consensus documents shows the agents’ unfeelingness and alignment to crimes. Usually, a professional doctor should respect humanity and deliver dedicated and veracious services. However, the Chinese doctors enthusiastically engage moaning relatives to sign false deals, including when they do not know whether the relatives are for such a cause. Similarly, offering money to relatives who determine the professionals’ mischief leads to hurting as it turns out that the physicians took advantage of the grieving members’ generosity. The medics’ view of people’s bodies as commodities also significantly offended the deceased persons’ relatives and the public. The pain occurs due to the specialists’ deliberate moves involving insolence to life, service, and humanity. Therefore, intentional harming of others criteria finds organ brokers guilty of uncountable crimes, thus proving their delinquency.

The Chinese doctors’ heinous acts imply the organ agents’ perpetration of violent acts. Research concerning the human body parts’ black market shows China, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, and India as the leading sources (Teacher, Hussain, & Abdul-Sahib, 2019). Teacher et al. (2019) argue that China’s involvement in illegal humans’ organs business arises from the nation’s forceful acquisition of organs from the incarcerated population. Teacher et al. (2019) further link the industry to the rising cases of people kidnapping and terrorism-related activities. The rise in demand for body parts worldwide, especially from Europe and America, creates an excellent marketplace for the illegal group’s wrongly acquired organs. America runs the so-called “waiting list” organ transplant system (Benoit & Benden, 2019). The structure keeps patients requiring new body organs on the waiting list until one’s time is reached, based on condition criticality, organ matching, and waiting period.

Currently, the number of patients requiring organ transplants exceeds the body parts supplied through legal means. Berry, Daniels and Ladin (2019) contend that eighty thousand patients exist on America’s waiting list, while the available legal schemes provide about eighteen thousand organs. The same challenge exists in the U.K. and almost all the other European nations, leading to the development of excessive demand for body parts. Families with financial stability result in seeking organs from the world market. A principal source of body parts includes China, Iraq, and Iran, where legal systems remain reluctant to control the matter (Teacher et al., 2019). Teacher et al. (2019) purport that most of Iraq’s organs available through the black market come from terrorist activities, where the bandits forcefully kill people to acquire the high-in-demand ‘products.’

China acquires a majority of its body parts from illegal sources involving brokers. Teacher et al. (2019) note that the nation allows the use of politics-linked inmates to acquire essential life-giving products. Most of the illegally obtained organs in the country have local utilization due to the significant gap between demand and supply (Teacher et al., 2019). Lau (2020) reports that the implicated doctors form part of the body parts trafficking cartels in China. The physicians undertake operations in secret zones and distribute organs at night to hospitals and other organizations (Lau, 2020). Participating in parts trafficking alliances means that the medics do not handle body parts acquired from deceased car accident victims alone, but engage in other illegal deals to retrieve the organs. The possible link between the professionals and other non-hospital related sources of organs proves their perpetuation of violence. Therefore, the issue justifies the criminality of body parts brokers.

Looking at the organ brokers’ activities based on a corruption perspective proves the agents’ misconduct. According to Lau (2020), discovering Chinese doctors’ crimes involved a relative’s hesitation concerning his late mother’s inclusion on the national list of organ donors. The individual hardly bears compelling evidence about the professionals’ misdeeds. However, the presentation of voluminous cash as a bribe to maintain silence proved to the curious young man that something was fishy. The curious teenager rejects the payoff and reports the matter to the authorities for investigations, leading to the truth’s revelation. Lau’s (2020) case is not unique to the doctors but shows the general practice of organ brokers, according to Scheper-Hughes (2020). As such, cartels involved in the body parts business have lots of money to silence authorities and concerned parties.

The finances body parts brokers utilize come from the disproportionate demand for the transacted items worldwide. Cartel members set and control the prices of such organs, with specific zones serving as the hub. For example, Iran, China, Iraq, and India offer the most affordable body organs to the international black market (Teacher et al., 2019). Iran’s adoption of laws legalizing trade in human body parts makes accessing such products significantly easy (Steiner & Trespeuch, 2019). Furthermore, Iraq gets most of its organs from terrorist activities linked to ISIS, which abducts and slaughters civilians for organs to generate money (Teacher et al., 2019). On the other hand, China’s flexible legal system creates ample ground for corrupt individuals to partner with the authorities to propagate the inhumane business. Consequently, organ brokers providing body parts to the global black market succeed due to using money to conceal their misdeeds, substantiating their lawbreaking.

Lastly, organ brokers’ objectification of poor peoples’ bodies makes them (the agents) criminals. Nations such as the U.S. and the U.K. are the pioneers of body parts transplant activities. The states also form some of the first republics to enact laws controlling endeavors relating to the medical practices. For example, America passed the “Prohibition of organ purchases Act” or code 42 U.S.C.A. § 274e in 1984 to control the issue (Teacher et al., 2019). The law bans all the activities leading to the commercialization of human organs and sets mandatory punishment for anyone breaking the decree. The U.K and many other European partners share similar regulations concerning the matter. Being some of the world’s superpowers and legal influencers, the U.S. and the European countries significantly guides the world in setting the appropriate commandments on various social practices (Buchan, Kotton & AST Infectious Diseases Community of Practice, 2019). Consequently, banning the human body’s commercialization is a universal law. Individuals violating such provisions automatically become criminals.

The Chinese doctors involved in acquiring human organs from traffic accident victims for money are criminals. The specialists engage in such activities to get livers, lungs, kidneys, heart, intestines, stomach, and arms for sale on the international black market. The conduct violates the two standard procedures legally employed by countries permitting organ acquisition and utilization for medical purposes. Teacher et al. (2019) provide the opting-in and opting-out as the typical methods applied in the U.S. for body parts gathering by professional doctors for lawful utilization. In the former approach, individuals willingly sign consensus notes allowing medical facilities to use the correct channel to retrieve healthy organs upon one’s death to benefit surviving sickly persons (Teacher et al., 2019). The opting-out scheme means that every surviving individual will donate organs upon death unless one opts out in writing (Teacher et al., 2019). The two structures establish decorum in the body parts’ acquisition dealings, making them legal. However, the Chinese medics’ case described by Lau (2020) shows organ brokers operating in complete violation of the set regulations. Therefore, the matter links body parts agents working in the dark market to crimes.

Conclusion

Body organs continue to be crucial elements in contemporary health care delivery. The items form a fundamental part of medical surgeries involving organ transplants, which offer more appropriate medication for conditions like kidney failure relative to dialysis. Accordingly, body parts utilized in curative operations come from consented donations. However, the rise in demand currently makes the legally acquired body parts inadequate for the global population. The issue leads to the emergence of international organs’ black market operated crooks. The organ broker plays one of the most critical roles by linking the donors and the recipients by getting the body part from the donor.

References

Benoit, T. M., & Benden, C. (2019). Pediatric lung transplantation: Supply and demand.Current opinion in organ transplantation, 24(3), 324-328.

Berry, K. N., Daniels, N., & Ladin, K. (2019). Should lack of social support prevent access to organ transplantation?The American Journal of Bioethics, 19(11), 13-24.

Buchan, C. A., Kotton, C. N., & AST Infectious Diseases Community of Practice. (2019). Travel medicine, transplant tourism, and the solid organ transplant recipient—Guidelines from the American society of transplantation infectious diseases community of practice.Clinical transplantation, 33(9), 135-29.

Lau, M. (2020). Chinese doctors jailed for organ harvesting. South China Morning Post.

Ren, C., Gao, J., Xu, G. J., Xu, H., Liu, G., Liu, L., & Zhang, Z. (2019). The nimodipine-sparing effect of perioperative dexmedetomidine infusion during aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage: A prospective, randomized, controlled trial.Frontiers in pharmacology, 10(1), 851- 858.

Scheper-Hughes, N. (2020). The Organs Watch Files: A Brief History. Public Anthropologist, 2(1), 1-36. Web.

Steiner, P., & Trespeuch, M. (2019). Contested markets: morality, market devices, and vulnerable populations. In The Contested Moralities of Markets. Emerald Publishing Limited.

Teacher, T. D. M. H. A., Hussain, A. H. F. T. A., & Abdul-Sahib, A. (2019). The sale of human organs between legalization and criminalization (a comparison).Journal of The Iraqi University, 40(2), 1-11.