Dr S. is a famous transplant surgeon in the Middle East. He operates "underground" on wealthy patients in different countries, from Israel to Turkey to Russia. The media refer to him as the "Organ Mafia doctor," and patients diagnosed with renal failure speak of him sardonically as "Robin Hood," acknowledging that he takes organs from the poor to give to the rich. But ethical issues of organ trafficking are not limited to marginal private clinics and "Mafia" doctors. All-living related organ transplants in Turkey involve similar ethical dilemmas: many related or nonrelated organ recipients pay their donors, and demand continues to rise. This paper explores practices in state and university hospitals and the ethical dilemmas doctors encounter to understand where and how judicial, cultural, and social categories of "human rights" and "crime" are constructed in our high-tech world. © 2004 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.

privatization Organ trafficking Media Middle East

Vulnerable Populations vulnerable population organ transplantation living donor Living Donors economics poverty human ethics Ethics, Medical medical ethics Turkey (republic) Tissue and Organ Procurement transplantation Humans Health Care and Public Health verbal communication Narration Article Ethics, Clinical Kidney Transplantation Turkey