Thursday, November 30, 2006

Should people sell their organs?

Growing up in a poor country I witnessed first hand people lining up at the hospital to sell their blood and organs for money to support their families. Evidently the O blood type made out the best as it is the universal donor! Even though donating blood is a much less invasive procedure and your body automatically replaces itself it still is a personal decision for each individual to make.
I admire people who are willing to take personal risks to save the lives of others, These people should be able to get a reward or payment of some kind. There are two primary arguments in favor of allowing the sale of organs. First is the fact that a person's organ belongs to them and they should be able to do with them as they wish. The second is that there is a huge shortage in organs available for transplants so if paying money for them will result in saving more lives then this can be justified.
The removal of live organs is difficult and painful for the donor. like any surgery the process itself is dangerous. It is possible the person undergoing surgery will not wake up and if they do make it through the surgery there is still a chance of post-operative infection wich could potentially kill. The donor should also be provided with proper health care and counseling before and after the organ removel.
In selling organs for money the one problem that needs to be addressed is the sale through underground markets and the donor and tehir vital organs are treated as commodities. Hown can we impose stricter regulations on theses " vendors" that are making money off the donors?

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