The Moral, Ethical And Legal Dilemma Of Renting Or Donating An Organ: Who Should Take The Call?

As a doctor, practicing medicine for almost four decades, every day I come across the dilemma of some-one willing to donate their tissue or organ to someone who needs it.

- Dr. H Sudarshan Ballal

As a medical professional, there is no medical dilemma in this issue. It is clear that any willing donation of an organ by a competent adult to someone who is in need of this is acceptable as long as the procedure is medically acceptable and the risk of donation is nil or minimal.

The procedures with no risk during donation include blood donation, sperm donation, breast milk donation, and bone marrow donation. Certainly organ donation such as kidney, liver and pancreas have some risks (the kidney being the least risky), but are still medically acceptable.

An interesting debate now going on is surrogacy wherein a lady rents her womb to carry someone else’s baby for nine months with certainly some risks associated with pregnancy along with the anaesthetic and surgical risks of a caesarean section which may be needed in some pregnancies.

The real dilemma here is not about medical issues but about donating or renting an organ for non-altruistic reasons or in other words, commercial reasons.