AAN-Tourney: This house would legalize the sale of organs.

Great round Con!BOP Analysis In R2 and R3, Con has completely dropped my BOP analysis. Extend it.Rebuttals C1) Saves lives Con fails to establish causation for any of his claims, either that the lower class will be the main sellers or organs or that this will deteriorate health or poverty significantly. In fact, I’ve provided adequate refutations of these in previous rounds, so I will cross-apply those. Moreover, screening will be done to ensure that donors are suitable to give up their kidneys, once an established system is set up. Con asserts that this system would make sellers responsible for their customer’s health problems. He provides no proof, of course, and fails to acknowledge that via the system we have, where about 60% of healthcare spending is conducted by the government and premiums rise as uninsured people are left with no choice but to go to the emergency rooms.[1] However, this point of his is non-topical. Con clearly doesn’t understand the point I was making about a market. In a market, there must be consideration on both sides. The patients get the organ and a chance to survive. The donors get the financial payment that they want. The ‘kidney,’ as Con said, or any other organ could keep the person healthy but this is not the only consideration. Moreover, these donors are not going to be ‘responsible’ for someone else’s health problems. They have a choice in this matter. It is a business contract- Person X gives Person Y an organ and in return, gets paid for it. Person X is not being held responsible. Being held responsible entails “having the job or duty of dealing with or taking care of something or someone” [2] Person X does not have to give up their organs, nor is he doing anyone a favour. He’ benefitting. Since there is mutual benefiting, no one is being made to have ‘responsibility’ for anyone else’s actions. C2) Easier Access to organs – Available and affordable Con concedes my point that easier access to organs will lead to a fall in prices per supply and demand. However, he then stipulates that this will harm poor people - the organ suppliers. However, this hinges on the assumption that poor people will comprise the majority of sellers, not buyers: as I pointed out earlier, people with declining health tend to be poorer. If anything, wealthier people who tend to be healthier will lose out. Con then brings up the black market, but drops the point that a legalized system is safer, while conceding it’s cheaper. To sell in a black market, there must be demand. Why would someone demand a dangerous, more expensive black-market organ sale when there’s a legal, safe, and cheaper option, with no compensation for mistreatment and poor service? In a free market, such businesses would tarnish their reputation and won’t get sales. Therefore, the poor are not being ‘exploited’ as Con mendaciously misuses the term. With respect to Iran, the sentence should read, “In Iran the sale of organs is legal.” It is one of the only place like this, and the number of deaths from lack of organs is much lower.“Iran (with a low deceased-donor rate) that has the highest living-donor rate in the world—23 per 1m.”[3] C5) Incentive to give up organs Con asks, if it is fair for someone desperate to be made to sell their organs, as they will quickly use the money, and their health will deteriorate. 1) They have the choice to sell their organs for the financial aid or not. They are not being forced and have a right to their bodily autonomy. 2) Is it fair to prohibit a system where both parties benefits and lives are saved because of Con’s baseless assumptions of what would happen? 3) If they burn out the money, they got monetary consideration and should have used it wisely. Con misuses the term ‘exploit.’ This is a sale, where both parties shall benefit. Con’s point seems to be that people can make bad decisions - he doesn’t expound on this- and therefore we should prohibit organ sales. The point is non-topical: he fails to establish causation, or why this bears out his point. People naturally can make bad decisions. What else shall we ban under that logic? C6) Close the black market I’d like to point my opponent to this quote- “There are no victims here," said Rachel Warshower, … "The donors are happy and the recipients are happy; Izhak Rosenbaum is not the monster the media has made him out to be." [4] ‘An unjust law is no law at all’- This quote from St. Augustine, later repeated by Martin Luther King, Jr. justifies that the sale of organs should be legalized. People have a right to freedom of choice. If they wish to sell their organs, and someone helps them remove it, this is a victimless crime. Again, I’ve already explained how in a black market system, there is more manipulation than an established, safe free market system, overlooked by the relevant authorities and medical personnel. With the possibility of lawsuits and the threat of jail time, corporations will be forced to provide adequate treatment to stakeholders. Con says, “People who just want to make money off of peoples organs won’t risk getting thrown in jail” Con, what do doctors do on a regular day? They save lives. What do they do it for? To make money, to be able to take care of themselves and possibly their families. This is the same situation! The doctors that will remove the organs benefit from both knowing they help save lives and financially. Since doctors have to be paid as an incentive for their work, are we going to prevent them from doing their job? Or maybe pharmacists, since they provide medication but at a cost? We don’t throw people in jail for pursuing their self-interest economically, but we do -- and can -- if they break the law, which we can’t say for a black market. Con asserts that organ donations are legal for health people. This doesn’t at all address the resolution. How many healthy people donate organs? ‘According to the USDHS, about 123, 183 people are currently waiting for an organ.’[5] If the incentive of money is offered, people will be more willing to donate! Plus, ‘One organ save up to 8 lives![5] C7) Morality Con stated, that I ‘[argued] from opinion rather than objective fact, but, he has yet to prove why indeed the government has ‘every right to prevent a business agreement.’ It is a fact that our organs belong to us, and as we are allowed do with our possessions as we please, we should be allowed to sell our organs. Organ traders shouldn’t be punished since they are doing a civil service rather than an injustice. It is a victimless crime since there’s consent from both parties and for a good cause. Con misinterprets my point as meaning that availability if something gives people the right to buy it and straw-manned that being denied something is immoral. I never said this. Reiterating, the sale of organs will help save lives and is a consensual act between the buyer and seller. This debate is on the sale of organs, or one’s personal property! Con states that organ donation ensures the needy are looked after the rich. Is that fair? Should Con not be arguing that people who need the organs are looked after first regardless of wealth? Moreover, this shall be, as stated previously, a business transaction, where stakeholders have freedom of choice, where everyone benefits. C8) The government is not legitimate to make anything illegal. My opponent strawmans my points with respect to government. I did not argue for no government.. I questioned its ability to illegalize substances or activities -- particularly victimless crimes when hypocritical politicians themselves are breaking such laws, e.g., Spitzer, a point which Con completely drops. There are a myriad of political and illegal scandals that continue to this day, be it unconstitutional NSA spying [6] or unauthorized drone warfare. As a result of reduction plans, 70,000 children would lose access to preschool because of the mandatory 5 percent cuts.[7] The government is corrupt, giving out giant subsidies to oil companies[8] and cutting benefits to poor people -- so the government is doing what Con baselessly claims organ sales would do, yet he trusts the government to be the arbiter of morality! My opponent cites the Commerce Clause as the authority for the government to illegalize. However, this is an oversimplification of my argument. The government COULD in fact make organ sales illegal; the question boils down to whether it SHOULD or whether it would be morally justified for the government, which wields a monopoly on force, to interject on people acting peacefully. A cheater could lecture someone else on the merits of fidelity because they have a right to freedom of speech. However, the person doesn’t have authority of moral high ground, contextually to say such a thing and would be a hypocrite for doing so. Con may argue -baselessly, of course- that this policy would harm the poor. However, the government and politicians actively attack and defame poor people at the behest of special interests on a regular basis, fuelled by lust for power and money and enabled by several Supreme Court decisions allowing for unlimited sums of money in politics, which led to the de-facto legalization of bribery and quid-pro-quo, under-the-table dealings. The crux of my argument was completely evaded and straw-manned by Con. Conclusion: I’ve rebuilt my contentions and have not dropped any. It is clear that the sale of organs should be legalized as the pros of saved lives and from the sales outweigh the assertive, incorrect, unsourced claims that the needy will not benefit. Also, Con, Wikipedia isn’t a reliable source. Please verify your R2 sources. Sources: [1]- http://tinyurl.com... [2]-http://tinyurl.com... [3]- http://tinyurl.com... [4]-http://tinyurl.com... [5]- http://tinyurl.com... [6]-http://tinyurl.com... [7]- http://tinyurl.com... [8]-http://tinyurl.com...Over to Con! Thanks for an excellent debate!