Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
2022 Salzburg Conference in Interdisciplinary Poverty Research Health and Poverty, Salzburg, Avusturya, 12 - 13 Eylül 2022, ss.19-20
Depending on the developments in medical technology, death is being challenged today, and the meanings of concepts such as body, life and death are reshaped based on social, cultural and economic changes. Changing living conditions reveal different disease models and offer new treatment methods. Organ transplantation is one of the most remarkable therapeutic advances in modern medicine in the last century. The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between poverty and organ transplantation in the context of gender, through discussing how the meanings of concepts such as body, life, death and vitality change with organ transplantation practices, based on the existing literature. The fact that organ donations are far behind the demands of patients waiting for organs brings to mind the question as to whether the patients to be transplanted are selected fairly. Since cadaveric organ transplantation in Turkey lags far behind developed countries, the issue of who is a living organ donor and who is the recipient of these organs gains vital importance. Although there are many ethical and legal regulations on organ donation, there may be inequalities in practice. Market conditions, where scarce resources have a high economic value, can motivate poor people to become living organ donors. Like poverty, gender also influences the organ donation process. It is possible to follow the reflections of gender inequalities observed in many areas of social life in organ transplantation practices, as well. The masculine hierarchy of medicine, the long acceptance of the male body as the norm, and the view of women as potential donors have been criticized from a feminist perspective. The transplant endeavor is literally dependent on making some bodies give up organs in order to provide treatment for others. While this renunciation is justified as an example of sacrifice and self-sacrifice in low-income poor countries, it is important who will risk their body and life through organ donation and who will benefit from this risk. When examining living organ transplants, it is noteworthy that the body at risk has a dominant sex. In traditional patriarchal societies: mothers, sisters and wives are expected to make sacrifices for their country, family and children and give up their own body. Therefore, as seen from other inequalities in the field of health; both poverty and gender appear to be important variables in organ transplantation. In this context, at the sensitive border between life and death, the issue of who will be an organ recipient and who will be an organ donor is affected by economic conditions and gender. In this study, the economic status of living organ donors, who gave the greatest gift of their lives, was examined in the context of gender. The Phenomenological approach was adopted in the study, which was carried out with the Qualitative Research Method. Women between the ages of 20-50, who are “voluntarily ” kidney and liver donors in Turkey, were reached using Snowball Sampling Technique and data were collected by in-Depth Interview Technique. Women's experiences of giving their organs, which are a part of their body, to someone else voluntarily, have been examined from a feminist perspective in the context of poverty and gender.