"I'm under the impression that matches are quite hard to find":
That may very well be true, and if my organs aren't in demand, then I guess I don't get paid that month. I'm not demanding money, just the opportunity to sell what I have that I don't need that other people want.
"You can't just go along to the hospital, look up your organs on a menu and expect to get paid for their extraction."
Sure, I understand that there must be someone who wants my organs before I can sell them. That's fine, and I would just have to wait. There's currently a website
www.matchingdonors.com that currently tries to match donors and those who need organs. I don't see why a similar system for buyers and sellers couldn't be worked out.
"There are also issues (already discussed earlier) of unscrupulous individuals taking advantage of the desperate"
Yeah, but isn't that pretty much the way society already works? Why do Americans get their clothes made in Thailand? At least this way the people in Thailand could have something really valuable to sell.
"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."
But it must exist in some form, otherwise how would that guy in prison have figured out he could donate his kidney to the other guy? Not all donations come from the dead, many come from the living. They have to be matched somehow, like the above mentioned website. Maybe people are already being killed by the thousands for their organs, but I haven't heard about it.
And murder would still be illegal, of course. Carrying around the internal organs of a man you murdered would be pretty convincing evidence that you were involved in the man's death.
"There are other tricky details, like deciding what prices to charge etc which could cause different problems."
Let the market work itself out. If a kidney is worth $2,500 then I'd sell mine. If it was only worth $2.50, then I probably wouldn't becuase it's a waste of my time. That's all I'm really looking for here, the opportunity to sell these things. I currently have the opportunity to sell lemonade on the sidewalk, but it's not a moneymaker, and I don't find it a satisfying experience, so I'm not going to do it. With organ selling, if it wouldn't make me money or be a satisfying experience, I wouldn't do it. I may be stupid, but I'm not an idiot.
And ShaniFaye:
"How are you going to be able to afford to buy yourself a kidney, if you ruin the ONE you have left, the whole premise of you selling the one you had was to have some extra pocket money?"
I'll sell a lung and buy a kidney. Although I won't be very comfortable, it is possible to live with only one lung. Or a cornea, or an eardrum, or a thymus gland, whatever the hell it is I need to sell to live. And if I've got nothing left to sell, then I guess I die. So what's the problem? At least I had one good month of hookers and booze in Sri Lanka before I went.