Thread: Selling Organs
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Old 11-03-2004, 04:14 PM   #13 (permalink)
zen_tom
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Mr Shake, you are almost convincing me. This *may* be my last attempt at a rebuttal. If you can get round this one, then I *might* even change my mind.

The logical/medical argument: Most organs (the ones that might fetch the most readies), once separated from the body quickly become useless if they are not found a suitable host. A suitable host is one who shares (among other things) a similar blood chemistry to the donor organ(I don't know the full details of the science, but I'm under the impression that matches are quite hard to find) The majority of organs that are currently donated after death are left unused and are not considered for transplantation.

This means that the method for which organs are donated becomes important.
You can't just go along to the hospital, look up your organs on a menu and expect to get paid for their extraction.

You would need to first allow the hospital to take down your details onto their files. Now if Mr RichButUnhealthy comes along needing a new kidney, they might find a match, and give you a call. Of course, you might have to wait a year, or a week, or maybe you never get the call.

At the moment of course this type of system does not exist. Families are normally approached first, and failing that, fresh corpses are tested for possible matches. There is no such system for pairing living, un-related people's blood chemistry.

However, let's assume that system is in place, living donors would have to go and sign up, and get their records on file, and perhaps sign an agreement stating that they would be willing to part with various body parts for cash.

The following details would have a huge effect on how the whole system would work. The balance being how many matches are found (lower if the system is a local, Doctor-maintained one with fluid prices) and the amount of cash an organ is likely to generate. There are also issues (already discussed earlier) of unscrupulous individuals taking advantage of the desperate - when you ask why people don't kill others so as to steal their organs, it's because the matching system I have described does not exist. If someone on the organ register is a blood match and that information is leaked to someone with a desire to live, might they not have motive to involve you in a car accident, or a trip down the stairs? This possibility (and it IS only a possibility) wouldn't have existed before the creation of the system that is necessary for this idea to work.

There are other tricky details, like deciding what prices to charge etc which could cause different problems.

I suppose this doesn't add up to a rebuttal, more a request for more detail and information. If you can think of a system that provides enough safeguards, that isn't a lottery, that will deliver working, healthy body-parts from those with too many to those with too few, without causing or risking undue harm or injury and without pricing the poorer members of the community out of the market, then maybe you are onto something. But it sure isn't a matter of popping down to the hospital like it might be for a plasma or sperm donation.
 
 

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