Living Organ Donors Should Be Allowed to be Compensated

First, the rebuttals -- The maximum rate of survival, obviously, is 100%. From the perspective of "double the rate of death is half the rate of survival," what I said was accurate, and my opponent again argues and insists that more than doubling the rate of death is insignificant . .. this should be left to the reader. Is whatever harm comes from compensating donors offset by the -significantly reduced rates of death-? Cadaver-originating organs have double the fatality rate of live donors, so clearly live donation is preferred; it has not proven possible anywhere that enough live organs can be donated to meet demand (even when supplemented by cadaver-originating organs). Compensating live donors saves lives that cannot be saved any other way. If you had two hospitals offering life-saving treatment, and in one, 1 in 18 died but in the second, only 1 in 47 died, which would be the wiser choice based on that? Would the difference be minor? I hope the readers and voters on this topic will focus on that fact and give it an appropriate weight on considering which is the lesser of two evils. And Con, again, dodged the question of comparing compensated organ donation unduly influencing the poor with compensated dangerous occupations also unduly influencing the poor by talking about what happens in Iran, instead. That's a non-answer to the question, but to rebut his non-answer, I would point out the hardships endured by soldiers and police officers on their families. Those are very stressful occupations, and psychological problems such as PTSD are quite real, angsty divorces and low pay and difficulty taking care of one's family relative to cushy corporate jobs. Some U. S. soldiers have such low pay that they actually qualify for food stamps! I pointed to the Iranian example as proof that compensated organ donation works in terms of ending the deadly waiting list and saving recipients' lives that would be lost if they relied on cadaver organs. I do not contest that Iran's actual implementation is right . .. maybe an ongoing regular allowance might work better along with lifelong free medical care. It is extremely inappropriate to compare compensating poor people with money to tempting gamblers with gambling machines. Is my opponent seriously attempting to claim that it is bad to pay money to people who have no money because having money is bad for them the same way gambling is bad for gambling addicts? He complains about this analysis of his comparison of gambling-machines-are--to-gamblers what money-is-to-poor-people when, as I am sure voters for see, that is not a valid comparison. Nowhere in my argument did I propose Iran's compensation of $1,200 for an organ donor would be appropriate here. Considering the information my opponent found, even adjusting for cost of living differences, clearly it should be higher, and/or regular in an annuity or perhaps a weekly allowance for life. To claim the poor are better off being poor is an even worse delusion my opponent has stated. The United States has a corporatized health care system, and with some 30 million Americans having no coverage at all, a recent Harvard university study found 45,000 people in the United States die every year because they cannot afford health care. Additionally, think of the deaths that occur due to poor people having to put up with junkers because they cannot afford newer cars that are safer, and other sacrifices poor people must make on their own personal safety and well-being because they cannot afford better options. I am not aware of any statistical analyses of the overall death toll from being poor (aside from that study on lack of health coverage), but it is not a factor to ignore in evaluating whether being given money can reduce this harm. Con also claims to have come up with better options to compensating living donors, but they all involve ways of simply getting more cadaver organs which might reduce the growth of the waiting list, but has not eliminated it and still suffers the double-and-a-half death rate of live organ donations, so lives are still needlessly waited even if they did miraculously eliminate the waiting list like never before. To believe my opponent and the long list of opponents to compensated organ donation, there is no serious harm in being poor. This is not true, and I do not believe this is considered in the equation. 45,000 Americans die simply from a lack of health care, and simply offering lifelong free medical care to live organ donors could greatly improve the /donor's/ chance for survival and a healthy life. Despite Con's misleading statement, the organ recipient's health insurance only covers the transplant and short-term recovery after the procedure, no more than a few weeks, leaving the donor to cover any long-term medical challenges themselves. My opponent cries foul yet cannot even answer questions, instead pulling a Palin by switching from an answer relevant to the question to an irrelevant mention of the negative side to Iran's program without caring to acknowledge the level or type of compensation could be altered, instead implying that donor compensation could only be the paltry amount Iran offers. In closing, I argue that Con's own statistics show a significant improvement in odds of survival for a needy organ recipient receiving the gift of life from a living donor instead of a dead body, a scale of two and a half times the death rate of the latter over the former. My opponent continues to fog and dodge the fact that a 1 in 18 death rate from dead donors is significantly worse than the 1 in 47 death rate from living donors. That is a significant and unnecessary loss of life, since there is an alternative that this entire debate is about. Further, the assertion that money cannot help the poor's quality of life nor chance to live is similarly false. The WHO and other human rights groups that I do respect and admire have not considered that issue, I feel; my opponent clearly has not considered the fact of a degraded quality of life and increased chances of death for a person with no money nor resources to get themselves medical help in American society. Legal compensation for donors will not only help the donors and recipients, but would also put the kibosh on the black market going on right now that is, indeed, abusive and harmful to disadvantaged people. Who would abduct people in a third-world country when you could legally acquire an organ from a willing recipient at home and, with proper legal protections, the donor can make off better than they were before with health care for life and some money to live on? I do not pretend that, even in the most ideal circumstance, there are no costs. There are long term risks and costs for the donor, and the great honor of altruistic donation may be lost; I do not consider these insignificant losses, but they pale compared to the lives that could be saved by instituting a compensation system that could leave the donors much better off than they were before donating, with their own health and well-being better than it was before donation, and how wrong is that? I thank my opponent and thank you, voters, for reading both sides of the debate. I hope the mere discussion is enough, if nothing else, to prompt those of you who could absorb the costs associated with being a living donor to check it out. You can be a real hero and save a life . .. even if you do not, I hope you do at least check that box on your driver's license so that, should the unfortunate happen, the end of your life could bring a renewed hope for life to someone barely clinging on. Thank you, and bless you.