April PFD Topic

So now as a brief road-map; I will first attack my opponent's arguments, and then with my remaining characters I will make some extensions on my own case. So going onto the Con case, he doesn't offer much in the way of structure, or observation; so I won't attack anything he has for that, instead I will jump directly into his contentions. Contention 1: Financial incentives may actually decrease donations. I have several arguments here, a. My opponent claim that one of the biggest benefits derived from organ donation, are the feelings of altruism that the family of the deceased has. They are comforted by the knowledge that their loved one's organs are helping another person to live, and fight on. And of course while this is definitely a benefit, it is not the largest benefit. We have to ultimately look to the fact that the biggest benefit is going to be the many lives saved from donating these organs; thus any procedure that we can take to help save these lives will be the correct procedure. b. Through my opponent's sources cited, he only proves that altruism is destroyed, which is regrettably a bad thing, but again it's not the most important thing. Again, the most important thing in this debate is going to be the saving of lives. My opponent never actually proves that by offering financial incentives, organ donation rates would go down; the best he is able to give us is a non-sequitar conclusion that giving financial incentives would lessen the rate of Organ Donation. The fact is, that there have never been financial incentives offered for organ donation, so we cannot be led to believe that this huge surplus of people would be so disgusted by it, they would completely withdraw from the program. c. Let's assume for a moment that My opponent is correct in his assumption that by offering financial incentives, that organ donors in the status quo would completely withdraw from the system. That wouldn't be a problem, those less emotionally inclined, or morally sensitive would jump at the opportunity to give their families a bit of financial security after their death, especially people who where otherwise the main, or even only care provider for their family. The fact is that people are creatures that are always wanting make a buck, and under my opponent's stance only those who exist as organ donors in the status quo are being considered Where this voted as Pro, many more would be donors. Contention 2: Organs cannot be treated as commodities. First of all, let's look at what exactly a commodity is, as [1] Princeton. edu defines it, a commodities are "articles of commerce" While there are financial incentives behind this organ donation, that doesn't lower them to commerce. We must remember that this is not a transaction, this is donation. The benefits are mutual, some-one's life is saved, and the families of the deceased gain a little financial security. But this is not the same thing as importing corn from Mexico, or starting one's own business; and that's because Organ Donation is not a business, it's a charity. With that said I have a few arguments here, a. First, Again these things are not commodities, but even if they where that would be fine; My opponent frames this argument as though it would be some huge mass of companies, or even individuals buying these organs. It's not like buying some-one's spleen would be as easy as picking it up while grocery shopping, as set forth by The National Organ Transplant Act of 1984; it would be illegal to sell an organ, these financial incentives would be more so gifts than they would payment for services rendered. b. The organs are only donated after the person is already dead, so when my opponent says that they have a uniqueness to them, or ought to have some different standard, it simply isn't true; the person is dead all of their organs are equally worthless to them, and equally life-saving to some-one else. Much of my opponent's impacts here are pathos based claims. Something not relevant in the scope of this debate if we truly wish to come to a true and fair conclusion. c. First of all, I want to make a direct link here between my own argument 3. My opponent already agree that there is a need for organ donation in our society; so since the organs are otherwise going to waste the most appropriate solution is to not only donate them but to give the family a bit of financial support as well. But not only that [2] the dead do not have rights so regarding this picture my opponent paints about creditors having rights to the persons "assets" is not a problem, this person no longer has any assets. and thus not human rights re being violated. [1] . http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu... [2] . http://www.slate.com... Contention 3: Financial incentives exploit the poor. I'm going to be brief here, as I think I've covered a lot of what my opponent claims here in my prior attacks. First I'll Extend my attack a. on Contention 1, and I'll simply expand on this attack here. a. The base idea I need to stress here, is that while altruism is most definitely a good thing to have; when held in comparison with saving lives from the donated organs, or providing financial security to those who are economically disadvantaged with the financial incentives, Altruism will be held as a lesser value every single time. Next extend my attack b. on contention 2, again I will expand on this attack. b. First, the altruistic point of organ donation is not so great a problem, especially when held in comparison to the many people who die from not getting a needed organ on the national organ transplant list every year. Donating organs is not like an apology; you can donate organs solely for the financial benefits, that person dying in a hospital bed from a corroded liver will be just as thankful for it had it been donated with love and sincerity. As I've already said before, in my own argument 3, that organs not donated are wasted; upon death and the embalming process, a person's blood is already completely drained and their organs are dried out, they still would not be gaining those altruistic benefits by not donating. The only thing these poor families would end up getting, would be funeral costs. c. Giving economically disadvantaged people financial incentives is the exact opposite of exploitation; it helping them in the most sincere an purest way. My opponent claims that these poor people will be exploited, and infers that they would be led to sell their organs right there in that moment; but as I've already proven organs are not donated until after death; this is not an issue. At this point I do not see a need to extend any portion of my own case, so I will now had the debate back over to my opponent.