Organ sale legality
Legalizing the Sale of Human Organs
Every 10 minutes, another person is added to the waiting list for an organ transplant. That’s 144 people every day, 52,620 people every year. And every day, 18 people die because there aren’t enough organs to go around. That is 6,570 people dying every year because they have waited too long for an organ transplant [All About Donation]. There has to be some way to prevent these innocent people from dying, and there is a way. Pretend for a moment that you’re in a room full of very sick people who need to be treated with medicine. Unfortunately, the room that you’re in does not have enough medicine. What do you do? You get more medicine from somewhere else. So how do we save people who need an organ transplant to survive? You get more organs. How do we get more organs? We legalize the sale of organs. We have legalized the market for blood, semen, and eggs, but not yet organs. Opening up this now illegal organ market will cut down the number of people dying every day and will save a lot of lives. Approximately 20,000 kidneys are donated every year, which may seem like a lot until you hear that there are 80,000+ people on the waiting list for kidneys each year [Anthony Gregory, 1]. These numbers are absolutely astounding. If we take a look into the black market for organ sales, around 15,000 to 20,000 organs are sold each year [Bilefsky, 2]. These numbers are also astounding. This is nearly the same amount donated every year. Imagine if these were legal sales and how many people they could have saved. They would have helped and saved thousands upon thousands of lives, but the law prohibits them from doing so. So why don’t we make it legal? Why don’t we save lives? ‘“Several years ago, transplant surgeon Nadley Hakim at St. Mary's Hospital in London pointed out that ‘this trade is going on anyway, why not have a controlled trade where if someone wants to donate a kidney for a particular price, that would be acceptable?
Every 10 minutes, another person is added to the waiting list for an organ transplant. That’s 144 people every day, 52,620 people every year. And every day, 18 people die because there aren’t enough organs to go around. That is 6,570 people dying every year because they have waited too long for an organ transplant [All About Donation]. There has to be some way to prevent these innocent people from dying, and there is a way. Pretend for a moment that you’re in a room full of very sick people who need to be treated with medicine. Unfortunately, the room that you’re in does not have enough medicine. What do you do? You get more medicine from somewhere else. So how do we save people who need an organ transplant to survive? You get more organs. How do we get more organs? We legalize the sale of organs. We have legalized the market for blood, semen, and eggs, but not yet organs. Opening up this now illegal organ market will cut down the number of people dying every day and will save a lot of lives. Approximately 20,000 kidneys are donated every year, which may seem like a lot until you hear that there are 80,000+ people on the waiting list for kidneys each year [Anthony Gregory, 1]. These numbers are absolutely astounding. If we take a look into the black market for organ sales, around 15,000 to 20,000 organs are sold each year [Bilefsky, 2]. These numbers are also astounding. This is nearly the same amount donated every year. Imagine if these were legal sales and how many people they could have saved. They would have helped and saved thousands upon thousands of lives, but the law prohibits them from doing so. So why don’t we make it legal? Why don’t we save lives? ‘“Several years ago, transplant surgeon Nadley Hakim at St. Mary's Hospital in London pointed out that ‘this trade is going on anyway, why not have a controlled trade where if someone wants to donate a kidney for a particular price, that would be acceptable?
Citations: Knox, Richard. "Should We Legalize the Market for Human Organs?" NPR. NPR, n.d. Web. 16 Jan. 2014. Gregory, Anthony. "Why Legalizing Organ Sales Would Help to Save Lives, End Violence."The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 09 Nov. 2011. Web. 19 Jan. 2014. "This House Would Legalize the Sale of Human Organs." Idebate.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2014. "All About Donation." Organ Donation Statistics and Data. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2014. "Legalizing the Sale of Human Organs: Necessary for Survival." Yahoo Contributor Network. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Jan. 2014. Josi Ezinga 4 Bifelski, Dan. "Black Market for Body Parts Spreads Among the Poor in Europe." NY Times. N.p., 12 June 2012. Web. 19 Jan. 2014.