The world of modern society is ever changing do to new discoveries and advancements in technology. As Carl Sagan once sated “We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.”(Carl Sagan. “BrainyQuote.com”) His words can be seen in the new, ever changing field of bio-printing. This is a new technology is already apart off of an already existing technology of 3D-Printing. Its called bio-Printing, and can arguably be the future of medicine and organ transplants, but there are many ethical issues that come with this technology. This unanswered question will determine the faith of bio-printing, and only once these question are answered will the technology be accepted by the society of the United States. 

To understand what bio-printing is, one first needs to know what 3D printing is. 3D or 3 dimensional printing is a process which uses “computer-created digital models to create real-world objects.” (The next frontier in 3-D printing: Human organs) So by using a type of software on a computer, a person will input the design that they want, then taking this design and sending it to a 3D printer. The printer then takes the information given and creates an output which is a model of the given information in a 3rd dimension form. This model can be printed using different types of materials such as plastic or even metal. Bio-Printing however, is a spinoff of the idea of 3D printing. What bio-printing does however is take stem cells from a human skin, blood or other parts of the body and print a human organ using these cell. The stem cells are then taken and grown in a petri dish, later being taken and layered upon themselves until a human organ is formed. 

Bio-Printing is a new technology and there are many things that are not known about it. The unknowns about the new technology are what raise the three main ethical questions. These question are:, How will it be tested, how will it be afforded and will it be used in order to enhance the lives of humans?  These questions are not only found in the United States, but worldwide. Many people feel like bio-printing will allow for people to live longer than nature has attended. Others raise the question about how should people receive these new Bio-Printed organs. All the answers to these questions are still unknown and must be answered before bio-printing will be accepted in the United States. Over time however, the answers to these question will be found, and Bio-Printing will be accepted in the United States society even based on our current ethic codes. 

The first question that is asked when it comes to Bio-Printing is “Should it allow for people to live longer lives than what nature has attend for humans to live.” (Dodds, Susan. “3D Printing raises ethical issues in Medicine.”) This is the biggest question and raises the biggest issue when it comes to bio-printing. People worry that this technology will allow for people to alter and change their physical body, thus going against what nature has attended for humans. Bio-printing would allow for someone to just print a new organ when one fails, allowing them to live many more years than what is natural for a human body. This act is seen as being wrong and goes against many people’s beliefs and religion. It is basically giving the person the choice in when they want to die and not when it is their time to go. In order to get around this, there will need to be laws set in place for how many bio-printing organs someone could have and when it is just enough. This will be one of the hardest things to figure out with bio-printing. 

The next part of the first question is “Who should be allowed to have a Bio-Printed organ?” Bio-Printing is not going to be cheap and or easy to have access to for many years even after it is fully released. What is comes down to is if you have an older person who needs an organ, who has already had multiple health problems, and you have a younger person who is in need of an organ, but may die of something else, who should get the organ? (Schicktanz, Silke “Teaching Ethics in Organ Transplantation and Tissue Donation.”) This situation is going to put doctors in a bind because they are the ones who are going to have to make the call on who gets the organ. It however can be fixed with some sort or protocol on who will take priority when it comes to bio-printed organs. Many doctors in the medical field are already working on. This protocol would have to be a nationwide standard, and be fair for everyone. 

Another ethical issue that stems off of the main question of who should get bio-printed organs is if people will use this technology to enhance their body. People who play professional sports are always trying to get an advantage over their competition. Bio-Printing would allow for this advantage to happen. There may come a time, that with this technology that a runner could have new, stronger leg muscles printed, allowing for him or her to be stronger and run faster times than the people they are competing against. This is a major problem because it goes against what a natural human body can do. The act of enhancing the human body to allow for a better athlete is unethical to most people. That was not the way the human body was naturally created and thus it should not be enhanced in that way. Also many people are worried about governments using bio-printing to create super human soldiers. These soldiers would be practically invincible, thus causing the creation of stronger, more lethal weapons. This would put more civilian at risk of being killed, making wars more dangerous than they already are. To overcome this, there will have to be a worldwide agreement for this technology to only be used for those who need new organs. It would have to be enforced by each country, and each county would have to enforce it on the other. Sort of the same way that a checks and balances system works in the United States.

The next question that is asked when it comes to bio-printing is how will it be tested? With this being a new technology, there is no telling how it will perform in real world application. It may sound all good on paper and in theory, but it may backfire once people begin to receive these Bio-Printing organs. This is where rigorous testing will come into play. As Sam Wadsworth mention in his TED Talk, there has already been testing done on animals with bio-printed body parts. (Wadsworth, Sam “3D Bio Printing is Medicines Next Frontier.”) The animal that was tested was a rat in which scientist were able to take the stem cells from the rat and grow a human shaped ear onto the skin of the rat. The issue with that is that a rat was tested and not a human. A rat’s body is largely different than that of a human, so there is no telling how a human body would react to the same kind of tested. Human stem cells are also extremely more completed than that of a rat. This could cause problems when it comes to testing with humans. The other issue is that there has not been a lot of testing done with bio-printing and organ transplants. The test with the rat was one of the first actual tests to be done with the bio-printed organ or body part. Most of the testing that is still occurring is how to properly grow and print the bio-printed organ with stem cells. The stem cells usually do not live long and can sometimes be extremely difficult to work with. This is causing scientist to have to learn new ways and tricks to work with human stem cells.(Schicktanz, Silke “Teaching Ethics in Organ Transplantation and Tissue Donation”) By learning these new tricks, they are not only helping the field of bio-printing, but they are also leaving new things about stem cells. These new findings may even be able to help other field of medicine that use stem cells, such as helping to determining inherited diseases.

The last ethical question with bio-printing is “How will Bio-Printing get along with health insurances?” This issue, even though still big, is probably the least of the worries of people in the biomedical field. Organ transplants are already extremely expensive. Based on information giving from UNOS Transplant Living, the average heart transplant in 2011 would cost around one million dollars, with the most expense trans plant being intestines. That is a lot of money that many people do not have and have to rely on their insurance to cover the transplant. The issue that comes with Bio-Printing is that if it is more expensive than that of a regal transplant, many insurances will not cover it. The insurance companies do not care if a Bio-Printed organ is better for the human body or not. All they care about how cheap the person who they are paying for can have the procedure done. This may cause problems because it will not allow for some people to have the organ that they need. There are many cases now in which a person may need an organ, but it is not able to get to them quick enough do to many laws and regulations. (Smith, Katherine “Transplanting Organ Donors With Printers: The Legal and Ethical Implications of Manufacturing Organs.”) The hope that with bio-printing, these laws can be changed and can allow for people to get their organs quicker, allowing for a faster transplant and possibly saving their life. If the Bio- Printed Organ not as cost effected as a regal transplant, insurance companies will not cover the medical bills, only furthering the gap between the rich and the poor. While the rich may be able to pay out of pocket or make payments on their medical procedure, they poor may not be able to do the same, putting them at a disadvantage to the wealthier people of the world. This is not fair because it is a human right that everyone be treated the same and have the same opportunities.

With this problem, however, there is a solution. The cost of bio-printing will have to be lower than that of a standard organ transplant. For this to happen, bio-printing will have to become widespread, much like mass production. There will have to be a market in which different companies compete for this market. Once scientist find easier ways to deal with stem cells, the printing part of the organ will become cheaper as it will be able to be printed faster. As technology advances, the printers will become cheaper to make as well as smaller in size. A smaller printer my even be able to be housed in a normal hospital, making the procedure even faster. With a faster procedures, more lives could be saved. With this becoming cheaper than a standard organ transplant, insurance companies will then began to cover the cost of a bio-printed organ. This would then allow for both people of wealth, as well as people who are less fortunate to have safer, more effective organ transplants. 

After looking at all of these ethical questions that are raised by bio-printing, why should it even be accepted in the United States society? Well bio-printed organs are much safer than that of a normal organ transplant. When someone receives a new organ, the organ had to of come from another human. Most of the time that person was killed or died and was an organ donor. Their organs are then removes, if they are healthy and are then given to people who need them. Every person’s body, even though much alike, are very different. Once a person has received an organ, there is no guarantee that it is going to work. This is because the person’s body may reject the organ. This can happen weeks after the transplant, or may even years. Once a person has had a transplant, they have to take antirejection pills almost daily, hoping that their body does not reject the organ.

Bio-Printing however, like stated earlier, takes stem cells for a person’s body and then uses these stem cells to print a new organ. The organ is then made up of that person’s cells. These are the same cells that make up the rest of the person’s body and organs. When this new organ is then transplanted into the person, their body does not view this organ as a threat, like it would an organ from someone else body. In theory, the person’s body will accept this organ as soon as it is put into the body. This means that there is no need for antirejection medicine or anything. This gives the patient the ease of mind that even may years down the road, their organ will not be rejected by their body, allowing them to continue to live their live like nothing ever happen. 

For bio-printing to be accepted however, the ethical question stated in this paper will have to be overcome. When it comes to if this technology should allow for people to live longer than naturally attended, that will have to be up to the doctor, the patient, the patient’s family as well as any laws and regulations that are put into place about the topic. As seen in history, as technology advances, so does the average life span of humans. Over the advancement of medicines, the life span of humans have double to triple in most counties. The thing is, bio-printing may allow for people to live way longer than average, allowing them to basically pick their time to go. No one knows when they are going to die, and that’s how many people fell it should be. When it comes to super humans, there will have to be laws put into place worldwide to insure that this does not happen. This is one of the more major effects of Bio-Printing. Any technology can be dangerous if fallen into the wrong hands. Scientist will have to find ways in order to insure that this is not the cause and Bio-Printing is only used for good. 

When looking at testing, new ways will have to be found in order to insure that bio-printing will actually work that it does on paper and in theory. The testing on animals work, but only to a certain limit. Many people believe that testing needs to be done with primates, as they share much of the same DNA as humans do. There is going to be no grantee that bio-printing will work at first, but that is the risk that is going to have to be taken. When looking at health care, it is much of the same. As the technology advances, it will become cheaper, allowing for health care and insurances to cover most people. 

In due time, Bio-Printing will be accepted in the United States society, even based on current morals and ethic codes. Just like with every new technology, it will take time for people to accept it. When the Wright brothers first invented the airplane, people looked at them as crazy. People viewed the new invention as unsafe and never having any practical use in the real world. Less than 100 years later, over 50 percent of the world’s travel is done by air. Bio-Printing is the same way. In time it will be the norm when it comes to organ trans plants. If people like it or not, bio-printing will be the future of organ printing not only in the United States, but worldwide. 
