It seems like we constantly hear news of shortages in critical
supplies causing countless deaths in Africa. What may come as more of a shocker
is that shortages of a certain kind also lead to deaths even in our own first-world
country, the United States.
Currently, only 10% of the
transplant operations needed by patients can be performed. The cause for such a
shortage of vital operations? A lack of willing organ donors. In response to
the added misery of organ waiting lists that often seem impossible to get to
the top of, an increasing number of Americans are favoring the option of
legalized organ selling. Apparently, this is an option for which even a
majority of transplant surgeons, best acquainted with the agony of prospective organ
recipients, are hoping. The obvious merit of opening up the sale of organs is
the thousands of lives that will be saved annually, since most experts do not
doubt that monetary rewards for sale will greatly increase the supply of
organs. This rise in supply, the market teaches us, will yield a lower cost for
organs overall, eliminating any dangerous underground markets in organ sales that may
exist. Another valuable result from legalizing the organ market is the
increased autonomy that we gain over our own bodies: no longer restricted by
Big Brother as to how we want to treat our bodies (people donate for free; why
not for cash?), citizens are free to make choices about themselves that they
find in their best interests. Readers who see a parallel arising between organ
sales and prostitution would do well to note that prostitution 1) inherently involves
a sexual degradation of particular horror and 2) tends to restrict prostitutes
to a lifetime, not just an operation, of service.
Another common
objection to the idea of selling organs comes in the fear exploiting the poor.
Again, though, we need to emerge from the illusion that we are endowed by Heaven
with the Rich Man’s Burden. It’s okay to allow our poorer Brothers to weigh
their own options. Are they truly free otherwise? At the same time, we do want
to avoid rushing into a new market scheme naively, so it would be wise to offer
certain safeguards for the general public, such as greater information as to
the risks of organ removal. Continuing this train of fear of the rich using the poor,
though, is the possibility of the rich buying the poor’s organs, while the poor
on waiting lists are left out. However, the aforementioned fact of increased supply
lowering price comes into play here. Also, a policy could be
implemented that subsidizes organs for all to avoid an organ elite.
One of the more intuitive reactions against organ sale is
the notion that it will commoditize the body. When we stop and consider other
examples of exchanging bodily parts for money, examples that no one seems to
mind, this protest loses it weight. For instance, what of the thousands of
college students who regularly sell plasma to get by? If we plan on limiting a
market that could save the lives of tens of thousands, we need to more closely
examine our knee-jerk reaction against organ sales.
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