General Links:

● The primary objective of transplant policies and programmes should be optimal short-
and long-term medical care to promote the health of both donors and recipients.
○ a. Financial considerations or material gain of any party must not override
primary consideration for the health and well-being of donors and recipients. (4)
○ a. Collaboration between countries is not inconsistent with national self-
sufficiency as long as the collaboration protects the vulnerable, promotes equality
between donor and recipient populations, and does not violate these principles;
(5)
○ b. treatment of patients from outside the country or jurisdiction is only acceptable
if it does not undermine a country’s ability to provide transplant services for its
own population. (5)
● Organ trafficking and transplant tourism violate the principles of equity, justice and
respect for human dignity and should be prohibited. Because transplant commercialism
targets impoverished and otherwise vulnerable donors, it leads inexorably to inequity
and injustice and should be prohibited. (6)
(http://www.healthytransplant.com/documents/Istanbul_Declaration.pdf)
● Last month, New Yorker Levy Izhak Rosenbaum pled guilty in federal court to the crime
of facilitating illegal kidney transplants. It has been deemed the first proven case of black
market organ trafficking in the United States. His lawyers argue that his lawbreaking was
benevolent: "The transplants were successful and the donors and recipients are now
leading full and healthy lives."
● In Japan, for the right price, you can buy livers and kidneys harvested from executed
Chinese prisoners. Three years ago in India, police broke up an organ ring that had
taken as many as 500 kidneys from poor laborers. The World Health Organization
estimates that the black market accounts for 20 percent of kidney transplants worldwide.
Everywhere from Latin America to the former Soviet Republics, from the Philippines to
South Africa, a huge network has emerged typified by threats, coercion, intimidation,
extortion, and shoddy surgeries.
(http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/11/why-legalizing-organ-sales-would-
help-to-save-lives-end-violence/248114/)
● What type of person has a kidney to spare for a bit of cash? Poor people. And the
Philippines has lots of them. In Basesco, on Manila Bay, about 3,000 of the slum’s 50,000
inhabitants are reported to have sold a kidney. According to the Philippine National
Statistics, these donors are all male, with an average age of 29. A third of them have not
even reached high school. Most are farmers or tricycle drivers with a US$90 average
household monthly income. They received just US$2,800 for a kidney, which they used to
pay debts, support their family or set up a business. In most cases, it turned out to be a
bad deal. About three-quarters told researchers they did not improve their lives
economically. Four-fifths felt their capacity to work was reduced. Almost none would
recommend that others sell their kidney.
(http://eticaarguments.blogspot.com/2008/06/philippines-ethical-time-
bomb.html)
● "90% of kidney transplantations here are from living donors, of which 68% are from
 LNRDs. This is a whooping 56% increase from 2002 and confirms the overwhelming
demand for organ donors." Added Dr. Nisperos, "This is where exploitation is rampant,
as most LNRDs come from the ranks of the poor and marginalized."
(http://www.phmovement.org/en/node/534)
● International organ trafficking has become a huge multibillion $ business and it continues
to grow. The traffickers have become more and more ruthless and have absolutely no
boundaries. An example is Antonio Medina, 23 year old migrant from Central America on
his way to USA with his wife were captured by a criminal gang. After being locked in
separate rooms, Medina heard his wife screaming. Later on, he entered the room and
saw his wife on a table with her chest wide open and without her heart and kidney.
Medina was lucky; he and some others were saved by Mexican soldiers. This is the
small part of global trafficking as for most of the part, organ trafficking occurs in hospitals
where medical practitioners are corrupt and cooperate with traffickers because of the
profit.
● China has done it well by attracting sellers and buyers by using the web. The communist
country has the world’s highest execution rate and the dead convicts supply healthy
young organs at all time. The Chinese justice system works effective and quick for those
who are sentenced to death and corrupt government workers take advantage of the
situation to earn extra money.
● Once patients arrive to China, the organizers will force them to bid more than the others
so that a single organ will go for the highest price. They are forced to sit at the hospital
and wait and watch who will get the organ from the executed prisoner.
● Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, a prominent and leading arbiter of Jewish law in Israel
advises that donating body parts violates the religious faith, which states that “upon
death, a body should be buried intact.” This has lead to a huge shortage of donors and
the list of patients is growing. The result is that money hungry gangs prey on these
desperate people.
● Shmuel Eliyahu, chief Rabbi of Safed, Israel has started a project to get 100 colleagues
to sign a document advocating organ donation. “The Torah tells people to help others
when they can, especially if it means saving a life. Donating an organ is a mitzvah, or
good deed, “he said.
(http://imo.thejakartapost.com/hatefmokhtar/archives/848)
● Only one country, Iran, has eliminated the shortage of transplant organs—and only Iran
has a working and legal payment system for organ donation. In this system, organs are
not bought and sold at the bazaar. Patients who cannot be assigned a kidney from a
deceased donor and who cannot find a related living donor may apply to the nonprofit,
volunteer-run Dialysis and Transplant Patients Association (Datpa). Datpa identifies
potential donors from a pool of applicants. Those donors are medically evaluated by
transplant physicians, who have no connection to Datpa, in just the same way as are
uncompensated donors. The government pays donors $1,200 and provides one year of
limited health-insurance coverage. In addition, working through Datpa, kidney recipients
pay donors between $2,300 and $4,500. Charitable organizations provide remuneration
to donors for recipients who cannot afford to pay, thus demonstrating that Iran has
something to teach the world about charity as well as about markets.
 The Iranian system and the black market demonstrate one important fact: The organ
shortage can be solved by paying living donors. The Iranian system began in 1988 and
eliminated the shortage of kidneys by 1999. Writing in the Journal of Economic
Perspectives in 2007, Nobel Laureate economist Gary Becker and Julio Elias estimated
that a payment of $15,000 for living donors would alleviate the shortage of kidneys in the
U.S. Payment could be made by the federal government to avoid any hint of inequality in
kidney allocation. Moreover, this proposal would save the government money since even
with a significant payment, transplant is cheaper than the dialysis that is now paid for by
Medicare's End Stage Renal Disease program.
(http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703481004574646233272990474.html
?mod=WSJ_hpp_RIGHTTopCarousel)
● Art. 429. The owner or lawful possessor of a thing has the right to
exclude any person from the enjoyment and disposal thereof. For this
purpose, he may use such force as may be reasonably necessary to
repel or prevent an actual or threatened unlawful physical invasion or
usurpation of his property. (n)
● Art. 430. Every owner may enclose or fence his land or tenements by
means of walls, ditches, live or dead hedges, or by any other means
without detriment to servitudes constituted thereon. (388)
● Art. 431. The owner of a thing cannot make use thereof in such manner
as to injure the rights of a third person. (n)
● Art. 432. The owner of a thing has no right to prohibit the interference
of another with the same, if the interference is necessary to avert an
imminent danger and the threatened damage, compared to the
damage arising to the owner from the interference, is much greater.
The owner may demand from the person benefited indemnity for the
damage to him. (n)
● Art. 433. Actual possession under claim of ownership raises disputable
presumption of ownership. The true owner must resort to judicial
process for the recovery of the property. (n)
● Art. 434. In an action to recover, the property must be identified, and
the plaintiff must rely on the strength of his title and not on the
weakness of the defendant's claim. (n)
● Art. 435. No person shall be deprived of his property except by
competent authority and for public use and always upon payment of
just compensation.
● Should this requirement be not first complied with, the courts shall
protect and, in a proper case, restore the owner in his possession.
(349a)
● Art. 436. When any property is condemned or seized by competent
authority in the interest of health, safety or security, the owner thereof
shall not be entitled to compensation, unless he can show that such
 condemnation or seizure is unjustified. (n)
● Art. 437. The owner of a parcel of land is the owner of its surface and
of everything under it, and he can construct thereon any works or
make any plantations and excavations which he may deem proper,
without detriment to servitudes and subject to special laws and
ordinances. He cannot complain of the reasonable requirements of
aerial navigation. (350a)
(Civil Code of the Philippines)

Pros:
● The demand for organs has continued to rise and the supply of available organs is not
keeping up. The shortage is due to the fact that the vast majority of organs are taken
from people who are fatally injured, such as motorcycle or car accident victims. The
number of sick people needing transplants far outstrips the number of organ donors
involved in
accidents every year. As a result, it can take years for a patient to get their opportunity
for a transplant and most countries do not have enough organs to meet the demand.
Many people who would be able to live if they could have an organ transplant will die
because of the shortage of organ donors. Tens of thousands of people die every year
while waiting for an organ transplant.
(http://rmunatunagb.wikispaces.com/file/view/HOT+Topic+Guide%5B1%5D.pdf)
● On one hand, the legalization of the international organ trade would yield positive
benefits. For example, it would inevitably cause international standards to be set,
thereby raising the bar in terms of health and safety standards. It would also
undoubtedly increase the amount of organs available to those in need across seas. The
legalization and therefore regulation of the international organ trade would also provide
more financial security to those who willingly sell their organs. Almost every country has
prohibitions like America’s 1984 National Organ Transplantation Act which prohibits
compensation for organ donating. Iran is one of the few exceptions; by legalizing sales
they have solved their kidney shortage problem while millions around the world still
suffer. Civil liberties however can be seen as the most fundamental case for legalizing
organ sales as the idea of “my body, my choice” comes into play.
● Ultimately, it comes down to saving lives. It would be better to save more lives by
opening up legal international trade of organs and have a black market rather than
having no legal trade, less lives saved and a black market.
● (http://prospectjournal.ucsd.edu/index.php/2012/02/5060/)
● In Iran, however, selling one's kidney for profit is legal. There are no patients anguishing
on the waiting list. The Iranians have solved their kidney shortage by legalizing sales.
(http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/11/why-legalizing-organ-sales-would-
help-to-save-lives-end-violence/248114/)
● There are two primary arguments normally offered in favor of allowing the sale of
organs. First is the fact that a person's organs belong to them and that a person should
be able to do with them as they wish. Second, the shortage of organs available for
transplantation is so great that more radical solutions for getting additional organs are
 needed - and if paying for them will result in more organs, then this is justified.
(http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/phil/blphil_ethbio_organsale.htm)
● The Roman Catholic Church is in favor of organ donation as act of charity and as a
means of saving a life. (http://vox-
vocis.hubpages.com/hub/WhatdoYOUTHINKaboutorgandonation-
ShareYOUROPINION)
● Convinced that the balance of moral and ethical concerns favors the ability to sell
organs, they would like the laws to change, and the AMA's governing house of delegates
is scheduled to vote in June on whether to support a pilot program. The American
Society of Transplant Surgeons has already endorsed giving money for cadaveric
organs to the families of the deceased.
(atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/phil/blphil_ethbio_organsale.htm)
Cons:
● ….. In Resolution 44.25, the World Health Assembly called on countries to prevent the
purchase and sale of human organs for transplantation.
○ a. Prohibitions on these practices should include a ban on all types of advertising
(including electronic and printmedia), soliciting or brokering for the purpose of
transplant commercialism, organ trafficking or transplant tourism;
○ b. such prohibitions should also include penalties for acts—such as medically
screening donors or organs, or transplanting organs—that aid, encourage or use
the products of organ trafficking or transplant tourism;
○ c. practices that induce vulnerable individuals or groups (such as illiterate and
impoverished persons, undocumented immigrants, prisoners, and political or
economic refugees) to become living donors are incompatible with the aim of
combating organ trafficking, transplant tourism and transplant commercialism. (6)
○ (http://www.healthytransplant.com/documents/Istanbul_Declaration.pdf)
● People in developed countries with extra income to spend on healthcare are turning to
impoverished people in developing countries who are so desperate for money that they
will offer their organs for sale. It is estimated that 5-10% of kidney transplants performed
annually around the world are the result of human organ trafficking. International human
organ trafficking often involves serious human rights abuses. The international
community must find a way to reduce demand for organs from the developed countries
and find ways to educate and protect vulnerable populations from being targeted for
organ removal.,
● (http://rmunatunagb.wikispaces.com/file/view/HOT+Topic+Guide%5B1%5D.pdf)
● “It is not a good idea to legalize payment for organ donors as such payment
institutionalizes the belief that the wealthy ill have property rights to the body parts of the
poor,” says Professor A. Vathsala, director of the adult renal transplantation program
and head of nephrology at Singapore’s National University Hospital.
(http://prospectjournal.ucsd.edu/index.php/2012/02/5060/)
● The principle of prohibiting financial gain from the human body or its parts was first
established in a legally binding instrument in Article 21 of the 1997 Council of Europe
Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine [CETS No. 164]: “The human body and
its parts shall not, as such, give rise to financial gain.” The principle was reaffirmed in
 the 2002 Additional Protocol to the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine
concerning Transplantation of Organs and Tissues of Human Origin [CETS No. 186]:
“Organ and tissue trafficking shall be prohibited.” This principle is important in order to
not jeopardize the organ donation system, which is based on altruism, the basis of organ
transplantation, from both living and deceased donors.Although many major statements
and international instruments refer to the trafficking of organs, tissues, and cells, there is,
however, no single definition that has reached international consensus. For example,
the World Health Organization issued guidelines in 1991 to avoid the exploitation of
organ donors. While 192 countries endorsed the document, the guidelines are not
binding and the recommendations have been widely ignored 10. No international
agreements exist in regards to organ transplantation outside of the country.
(http://rmunatunagb.wikispaces.com/file/view/HOT+Topic+Guide%5B1%5D.pdf)
● The truly decent route would be to allow people to withhold or give their organs freely,
especially upon death, even if in exchange for money. Thousands of lives would be
saved. Once again, humanitarianism is best served by the respect for civil liberty, and
yet we are deprived both, with horribly unfortunate consequences, just to maintain the
pretense of state-enforced propriety.
(http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/11/why-legalizing-organ-sales-would-
help-to-save-lives-end-violence/248114/)
● There are two possible forms which selling organs could take: selling organs of the living
and selling organs of the dead. Because it is difficult to live without your internal organs,
the former would be limited just to selling kidneys because people can generally live with
only one of two kidneys if necessary.
● Nevertheless, having a kidney removed is a difficult, painful and dangerous process. It
hurts quite a lot, and the pain continues for a while after the surgery. Like any surgery,
the process itself is dangerous, and it is possible that the person undergoing the process
will not wake up. If they do, there remains the problem of post-operative infection - which
can kill - and the muscles of their abdomen may never regain their former strength and
elasticity.
● Finally, there is no guarantee that the person really will be able to live with just one
kidney - disease or injury later on could be fatal for a kidney donor. This is even more
likely with the poor because of their health, behavior, where they live, etc. Do we really
want to start flying poor people from Africa or Asia to Europe and North America so that
they can sell a kidney to the wealthy?
(http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/phil/blphil_ethbio_organsale.htm)

To Trade or not to Trade, That is the Question: Legalizing Organ Trading in the
Philippines

I. Problem Situation
II. Ideal Situation

Amendment or abolishment of... RA on human trafficking and sale of body parts 2003
III. Research Gap
IV. Corollary Issues

1. Whether or not parts of the body are considered as property.

Legal Basis

1987 Constitution Article 3 Section 1: No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property
without due process of law, nor shall any person be denied the equal protection of the laws.

Organ Donation Act of 1991

*** Don’t know where to find, but law that acknowledges hair, teeth, blood as property starting
from the time it was removed from the human body

Civil Code

Property Rights
-right to enjoy, use,

Conclusion:

Body parts are impliedly acknowledged as property under Philippine laws.

2. Whether or not there is legal basis for allowing organ sale under Philippine laws.

Article 13 Section ? of the Philippine Constitution- promoting health, betterment and blah

Right to property~ right to profit from property (based on answer to Corollary 1)

3. Whether or not there is legal basis to continue the ban of organ sale in the Philippines
(tentative)

*/not sure if we can find anything on this one... because i sort of read somewhere that organ
sale was allowed in the Phils before the bill

Human Rights/ Bill of Rights?

Non-use Property- body parts as a non- commercial object

1. Whether or not
increasing need of organ transplants
ambiguity of law when it comes to human body parts as property, legalizing sale of organs of
the dead and who can claim ownership

**** SORRY FOR THE MESS!!! I just put in them stuff that I remember... basically this is
all I can give right now... my groupmate in Jap never did anything, I wanna rip her apart!!!
-_-”

-Suggestions:
We have to look at the whereas clauses of why organ trading became banned in the
country.