Gifts for Everyone?

Pittsburgh, in addition to being home of great athletic teams -forget about the Pirates for a moment - is home to cutting edge medical transplant technology. This is because the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center – also known as UPMC – is stationed here. UPMC, “since 1981, [has] performed more than 17,000 organ transplants, and [their] role as a pioneer in solid organ transplantation has allowed [them] to develop some of the most extensive clinical expertise in the field” (upmc.com). This type of language is found throughout the part of he site devoted to transplants. They stress the professionalism, trailblazing, and experience of the program. For example, under the ‘Why choose UPMC’ tab you’ll find this: “At UPMC, it's not about the numbers. Though our physicians have conducted more than 17,000 transplants in our programs' history, what really sets us apart is our expertise” (upmc.com). Notice how numbers aren’t important… but they really are.

Another type of language found throughout the website is one that Lesley Sharp discusses fairly heavily in her introduction to her book Strange Harvest: Organ Transplants, Denatured Bodies, and the Transformed Self. This language treats organ donation as a gift, one that you’d be lucky to and should give. In her book Sharp asserts, “the language of the gift permeates nearly all discussions of organ transfer, which is defined as a very particular kind of giving in America. Most important, organs are nearly always described as ‘gifts of life’ (Sharp 13).

In UPMC’s section on ‘The Importance of Organ Donation’ you read “for people whose organs are failing because of disease or injury, donated organs and tissue may offer the gift of sight, freedom from machines, or even life itself” (upmc.com). In the same section, it says, “most living donors feel that their donation is one of the most positive events in their lives” (upmc.com). These two sentences emphasize the donation as gift mentality – and for the record, I’m not arguing that it isn’t. The implied receiver in the first sentence can, with your donation, be free to have and live a life – which is typically thought of as the biggest gift of all. In the second sentence cited, it refers to the gift that you as a donor will be getting – the gift of the best experience of your life.

One thing that this gift vocabulary excludes is who exactly is allowed and gets to receive this gift of life. While perusing UPMC’s website, I came across a section entitled ‘Financial Considerations.’ Before we get into the text, let’s take a look at the picture in this section:

The two bodies involved are white bodies. Both bodies are female. Both appear to be well dressed and clean – the one should absolutely be since she is on the job – which makes me feel like they are both at least fairly well off. This image gives us an idea of who generally gets to receive donations. Nancy Scheper-Hughes touches on this subject in her article Commodity Fetishism in Organ Trafficking. What she says mostly reinforces what the image tells us. White, well off people get to receive organ transplants.

The text also reinforces this, albeit not so explicitly: “The cost of transplant surgery, which includes pre-transplant evaluation and follow-up care, may be very high. You need to know how much of the cost of your transplant will be paid by insurance and how much you will have to pay” (upmc.com). This statement assumes two things about the patient that will receive the transplant. First, it assumes that the patient has healthcare. Second, it assumes that people would be able to cover whatever their insurance won’t pay. Unfortunately, not everyone is able to afford that. So although organ transplants are a gift, not everyone is able to receive that gift.

(Image courtesy of UPMC.com)