I happen to be a proponent of one being allowed to sell their organs. My sister vehemently opposes selling organs under a system where you would guarantee your organs to a commercial organ bank upon your death and be paid a sum of money by the commercial organ bank that you guaranteed your organs to. Although most people on the street do not support selling organs, what are some logical arguments against selling organs? Let me indulge in arguing against one of the problems that my sister pointed out in this system. This system would not greatly decrease the number of free organs because it would not prevent people from continuing to utilize the free organ banks.
You know, doing what is right is easy. The problem is knowing what is right.
Once you offer a product on the open market, you will be affected by economic forces. Since the supply of organs is limited (we’re all still using them, after all), the demand would drive up the price. This would, in turn, put pressure on the suppliers to do whatever they had to do to increase the supply, up to and including organlegging.
Nonsense. Free organ banks would become ghost towns: anyone who’s willing to donate organs upon their death will look at their options, and lacking a strong moral impetus to donate to the free banks, will select a paying bank.
Never attribute to an -ism anything more easily explained by common, human stupidity.
Everybody who has already willed their organs to free organ banks probably donated them out of a sense of good will. Although free organ banks would lose some business, they would not become ghost towns as you phrased it. Of course organ legging would continue to be illegal. Assuming that some level of organ legging is already occuring somewhere in the United States, this organ legging would actually decrease. If people had the opportunity to just spend more money because they would bid on organs, there would be less organlegging.
You know, doing what is right is easy. The problem is knowing what is right.
The dangers of organ trade would be most effectively limited in a highly regulated market. We have the perfect medium with its laws, enforcement and participants in place already; the futures market.
Futures contracts would either be closed out by delivery or buying back (assuming you shorted yourself) And as everyone could theoretically start of with some "money in the bank’ organ prices would probably become more equitable and definately more available. This would in turn squeeze the underground market who couldn’t compete with such a highly liquid market.
With every man,woman, child having a ‘basket’ of commodoties to trade,we could all pay for our funeral expenses by hedging the cost against a couple of kidneys. The possibilities are endless!
If you were a good enough trader or had a decent broker you could buy and sell your own lungs heart eyes etc and have plenty of time to spend the profits before you had to make physical delivery. Puts a whole new slant on insider trading eh.
threemae, you really ought to get out to other areas of the board. Did you know, for example, that there is a Great Debates forum designed specifically for questions with no one right factual answer?
The main reason for posting there instead of here is that a lot of regular posters don’t read this forum regularly, because they already already know how to do everything they want to do on this board (for the most part.)
But I will warn you ahead of time that debates over there can get rather heated, and people are called upon to back up their opinions with something other than more opinion. Those who can’t or won’t back up their views are not treated nicely.
To answer your question:
Organ donation is already a very costly procedure which could become prohibitively expensive for a majority of Americans (let alone 3rd world countries) if a high fee to the donor’s estate were required.
It would change the prioritization of recipients from highest medical need to highest bidder.
It would encourage destitute people to sell superfluous organs (one kidney, a chunk of liver) to organ banks. The problem with this is that while the 2nd kidney may be superfluous at age 22, it may not be at age 52.
Sue from El Paso
Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
Sheesh.
Threemae, ignore the first part of my post. For some reason, I thought i was still in “About this message board”.
I still think this question would be better served in the GD forum, but the line between a GQ question & a GD question is a lot fuzzier than that between a GD & a Message Board related question…
My apologies.
Sue from El Paso
Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
Also, organs are sold & have been for a long time in the US already. They just don’t call it that.
If you get an organ transplant, on your invoice they list the charge for the organ. It can be pretty high. If it’s a bought thing, why can’t it be assumed to be sold?
Probably cause the docs get the money?
The charge for the organ, handy, is the cost of harvesting it, tissue typing it, and transporting it (next day Fed Ex is not an option).
Yes, the doctors who surgically remove the organ get paid for their work, as do the nurses, OR techs, lab techs, housekeepers who get the OR ready, and host of others who contribute to making it available to a donor.
There are also supplies used, and hospital electricity, oxygen, etc which require reimbursement. These are not free.
I have spoken to recently bereaved family members about organ donation. For the most part, they are understandably upset, and truly want to do whatever their loved one would have wanted. A few, however, would go in and pull any gold fillings out on the spot if we let them. Asking family members to make a decision such as this that tangibly benefits them (or at least some of them) creates an ethical morass I would very much hate to become involved in.
Wolfduke brings up the possibility of mortgaging your organs - receiving $$ up front for the later delivery of the organs. The problem with this is that often, either the cause of death, or some other medical condition makes the organs unuseable. Any cancer with metastatic potential precludes internal organ donation. Any past or current infection with HIV, Hepatitis B or C, and certain other diagnoses preclude tissue donation.
Sue from El Paso
Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
Sue, the type of system I was proposing was precisely the one the Wolf later stated more clearly. I think that an organ bank could be highly profitable if they took large numbers of potential doner. It would be like the life insurance business except in reverse. The banks would want you to die as soon as you signed on nless you died from or had some sort of disease that would prevent one or all of your organs or tissues from being donated. I do not think that people should be able to actually sell extra ograns such as a kidney or chunk of liver.
You know, doing what is right is easy. The problem is knowing what is right.
The real reason is they don’t want to legitamize(sp?) it. What are the problems that would arise from legalizing drugs. The same as alcohol. We saw how it was impossible to take back alcohol. If we legalized drugs we’d get the same reaction as prohibition.
So the same goes for Organs. If we did allow them to be sold and it turned out to be a bad idea it would be hard to turn it off.
It is akin to adoption. You can’t sell a baby, but you can pay a women 100,000 for her “care” while she is pregnant. The rich will always find a way.
Anyone see that tv program where in some foreign land people sell their kidneys? One guy woke up to find out that in the night someone took one of his kidneys. They kinapped him, took him to the hospital and took one. weird.
To quote the great George Carlin “Why should it be illegal to sell something that it’s perfectly legal to give away?”
As a personal freedom issue, I think people should be allowed to do whatever they like with their bodies (and yes, I am also for legalized drugs and prostitution.). As was pointed out, the wealthy find a way to buy what they need anyway (I don’t believe for a minute that Bill Gates would be waiting his turn on an organ donation list if he needed one), so why shouldn’t the presumably less wealthy donors or potential donors be able to profit?
If you are struggling to keep a roof over your families head, then I am willing to bet that the fact that you may miss your extra kidney in 30 years or so is probably a pretty low priority, and people should be able to decide for themselves what they are or are not willing to do in the interest of theirs or thier childrens future.
I think allowing the sale of human organs (under carefully regulated conditions) would increase the supply of donor organs for the simple reason that people who would not formerly have bothered to donate out of altruism will do so out of the expectation of personal gain. I believe that people act in their own self-interest at all times, and if you feel “altruistic” about something you’re doing, you should stop and carefully examine your motives. Even if you water this admittedly cynical attitude down and say “people usually act in their own self-interest,” it follows that you will get farther by appealing to self-interest than by appealing to “altruism.”
Of course, allowing the sale of organs does raise the possibility of blood-chilling abuses up to and including involuntary harvesting, but there’s no need to allow a patient to show up at the hospital with a kidney in a beer cooler saying “never mind where I got it.” For those who say the practice of organ sales would allow the rich to profit from the misery of the poor, I would ask what they think the rich are doing now. At least this would allow the poor to sell the only asset they indisputably possess.
In the agriculture business there’s this thing called “Early Harvest”. If the hay isn’t quite ready, but there’s a blizzard coming, they’ll go ahead and cut early.
Just an observation.
Peace,
mangeorge