Parts is Parts...

[DerickM 1]

Organs to be taken without consent - Telegraph

Organ donations have been the news recently. Most alarmingly, the new policy in Great Britain that allows hospitals to take organs without consent. This is wrong on more than one level, but without getting into these specifics at this time I want to propose an alternative: Organ selling.

For starters, let's talk kidneys.

Currently, sixteen people die in the United States every day while awaiting a kidney transplant. Good kidneys are not, and should not be, rare to find. Everybody is born with two good ones, and only one kidney is necessary to sustain life.So,yeah, there's all these spare parts walking around and no really good reason for sixteen deaths everyday.

The issue then, is not one of limited supply, but one of supply and demand. Generally, some healthy soul assumes room temperature, and then the medical staff comes out, like vultures circling a fresh kill, and attempts to persuade the grieving family to part with some parts:

"So sorry your child is dead. Can we have this?"

or,

"Before we pull the plug, we want something for nothin."

Morbid.

If families, or even individuals, were allowed to sell their kidneys, more kidneys would become available. Money is a great motivator. How many surviving families could be benefitted if they could get a sizable lump of cash after Daddy dies in a tragic accident,leaving his kids without the support of a father? Or, somebody struggling in poverty could offer up one of their spare kidneys to somebody with the means to save themselves while also helping out another?

Now, before you go and turn all "Two Americas" on me about how 'the rich' will benefit off 'the poor', let me inform you: our current system of donation already favors the wealthy and the famous. Celebrities routinely move to the front of the organ line. This is not a not a secret to the mildly informed. And the wealthy, but not so famous, travel to third world nations like India to receive organs on the open market.

I don't know about you, but if a family member could procure an organ for a price, I wouldn't hesitate to drain my savings and mortgage my home to save their life.

Add in the charity factor of neighbors, co-workers, or church groups, and nobody will go without.

As it stands now, I am forbidden from doing so as I do not have the means to go abroad, or a government that will allow this basic freedom.

Right here, right now, in what is bragged of as the freest of nations, everybody makes money from organ donations except for the supplier of the organs. We need to change this.

Sure, we could adopt the European-socialist-serfdom model that says you and your body are not your own, but wards of the state instead, to serve a greater good according to, and defined by, the The Powers.

Or we could solve our organ shortage in a manner that respects individual freedoms and personal sovereignty.

[nina874 48]

Hmm Is this the thing where you have to sign up if you DON'T want them to take your organs?

Really need to get round to doing that.......

Gotta love the UK.......lets face it in our hospitals they will probably kill you anyway, it just means that now they meant to so they could do their harvesting.

I feel the same way about it as I do about prostitution hon, if you've got it you're selling and someone else wants to buy it, bring it on.......

[trish5713 2]

I just don't see what the big deal is of taking someone's organs if they're dead. They won't need them. There are plenty of people that could use kidneys, livers, retinas, etc. When I go I hope they clean me out. It just seems silly to me to let stuff like that go to waste.

As for organ selling, sure, why not? People sell plasma, sperm, and eggs, so why not kidneys. You only need one. If I needed the money I'd sell my kidney before I sold my eggs but I can't. And it's stupid.

[gadgetlady 4]

People SHOULD be able to sell their organs. My body, my choice, right? Oh, wait . . . that only applies in CERTAIN circumstances.

[nina874 48]

I just don't see what the big deal is of taking someone's organs if they're dead. They won't need them. There are plenty of people that could use kidneys, livers, retinas, etc. When I go I hope they clean me out. It just seems silly to me to let stuff like that go to waste.

As for organ selling, sure, why not? People sell plasma, sperm, and eggs, so why not kidneys. You only need one. If I needed the money I'd sell my kidney before I sold my eggs but I can't. And it's stupid.

I dont mind being asked, I dont have a problem with selling , but the idea that docs can just take what they want without asking??????

If one of my kids (god forbid) were in that situation and they didnt ask, I would take the hospital apart brick by brick.

You also get into the debate about how hard will they try to save you if you fit the category just right, they have a limited time scale for donation, and they cant afford to let the organs fail, lets face it they are happy enough to pull the plug over cost issues, how bad would it get if they had even more benefit to them from doing it?

Just my opinion.

[DonHoll1 0]

I am an organ donor. All needed organs. I think it would be great if you could sell organs. The supply would sure be better for those who need them. Donna

[trish5713 2]

You also get into the debate about how hard will they try to save you if you fit the category just right, they have a limited time scale for donation, and they cant afford to let the organs fail, lets face it they are happy enough to pull the plug over cost issues, how bad would it get if they had even more benefit to them from doing it?

If I was only being kept alive by a machine then I hope they would pull the plug. I understand that some people might disagree with that and that's ok. But I just don't think that being alive on a machine is living at all. It's not fare to family and friends to delay the inevitable.

[nina874 48]

Sometimes the machine is keeping you alive while the rest of you recovers, in that situation I would fight to keep my kin alive. When there is true brain death then there is no hope,but some cases are a wait and see situation, in that situation I would want them to fight to save, not hang round like vultures thinking what they could harvest.

[Ariel 1]

I think selling organs is wrong. You should either give your organ out of love or human kindness or you don't do it. Selling organs would just cause too many problems thats why they don't allow people to sell thier blood anymore. Too many drug addicts. An organ is much too valuable of an assest to sell. Sure now you may be healthy but in 20yrs maybe you go into kidney failure and lose that kidney, or your stuck on dialysis and can die or worse yet, your child needs a kidney and you would have been a perfect match. We should stick with the way it is or maybe even adopt the UK method of harvesting the oragans but tweak it a bit.

[trish5713 2]

Sometimes the machine is keeping you alive while the rest of you recovers, in that situation I would fight to keep my kin alive. When there is true brain death then there is no hope,but some cases are a wait and see situation, in that situation I would want them to fight to save, not hang round like vultures thinking what they could harvest.

I totally agree with you about the wait and see approach. But I don't know of any doctors that are "vultures" waiting to claim some organs. That is unethical and highly unlikely. Such actions would probably result in a withdrawl of a medical liscence. I can't even imagine the number of malpractice suits would come out of that.

[BJean 16]

It seems logical on the face of it - allow a person to sell his/her kidney - or his/her heart, whatever. It seems that it would be a good way to reward people for being organ doners.

However there are powerful people out there that when desperate, they could offer quite a large sum of money to someone who is healthy but who is without financial means. That poor person may be willing to sell his/her heart to save the family. Eeeuuww.

Not only that, but the old crazy urban legend that went around about the guy waking up in a bathtub full of ice in a hotel room with a large scar where his kidney used to be, might actually become a real story.

I agree with Aiel that people should donate their own organs if they have that desire. I disagree that we should make cadavers property of the state though. I just don't believe Americans are ready for that. Hell, we can't even wrap our minds around the idea of providing medical care for everyone. We value our freedom too much, even if it is contrary to the greater good - as in driving gas hogs and smoking in public places, or in being buried or cremated with our innerds in tact.

[BJean 16]

trish: Don't you watch "House"?

[gadgetlady 4]

I think people should have the right to do whatever they want with their bodies, including selling their organs.

[green 6]

I am in the market for a lung. I have type B positive blood.

[BJean 16]

Good Lord Green, I hope you're kidding.