The Federal Government should permit the sale of human organs for transplantation

BOP:Pro says “all I have to show is that laws banning organ markets are illegitimate, for whatever reason.” Read the resolution. You have to prove that the federal government SHOULD do X, which is a policy change from the status quo. If doing X has unique harms with no unique benefits, you have not given a reason as to why the federal government should change the status quo.Self-Ownership:Pro says I contradict myself when I argue because I presuppose having property rights over my own body, and should therefore have the right to sell the organs within my body. This does not apply once is understood by the word “transplantation.”(1) At the very most, this argument is a warrant for why people should be allowed to sell their organs for other reasons, but insofar as other people are unique harms when organs are sold for the purposes of transplantation, there is a reason to regulate the purposes for which organs are sold(2) My opponent already conceded this when he insinuated that there could be regulation of the manner in which organs are sold. All my argument does is to show that the general sale of organs should be regulated such that sale for the purposes of transplantation should not be allowed, given the unique harms. Indeed, discourse ethics does not apply when other peoples’ rights are violated. In this case, the right of people to know that the organ they are getting is not diseased or will not fail, both of which happen in the pro world.(3) I do not need a kidney to argue or communicate. My being a person is not contingent on certain parts of my body. (4) Even if my arguments are contradict self-ownership, it does nothing to say that the federal government allowing X is desirable. It may be that an argument contradicts Y, but the impact of the argument is better than affirming Y.Disease:My opponent says the disease argument is a non-issue since people cannot be told that the risks outweigh the benefits:(1) This argument holds no weight insofar as there are other ways for people to get organs so that they do not have to decide between risks and benefits, they need only weigh the benefits of transplantation over dialysis, for example(2) DROPPED: The fact that there is a ‘window period’ in screening that IS empirically exploited by paid donors means that people are accepting organs blind; the risks are not clearly defined as is the case with medication where the risks are explicitly given. The government therefore has a compelling state interest to prevent the dissemination of diseased organs, especially when safer alternatives exist. (3) My opponent said there can be regulations to stop diseased organs. Insofar as this is impossible given he ‘window period,’ organ sales should be banned for the purposes of transplantation. My opponent then brings up a rather meaningless indict to one of the quotes I used that basically says differences in disease between paid and unpaid donors have been ‘eradicated’ and incentives could solve the problem when they are given after the transplantation. (1) This ignores the ‘window period:’ “Paid donors are more likely to donate blood during the ‘window period,’ when blood viruses may not be detectable in screening tests. Unfortunately, screening tests without a ‘window-period’ do not exist, and probably never will” (Poel, 2002). (2) Systemic empirical analysis: “Overall, the data available continue to indicate that paid donor populations have higher frequencies of blood-borne infections than unpaid ones (see fig 2). Trend analysis does not indicate that the difference in risk between paid and unpaid donor populations has diminished over time (period of 36 years).” (Poel, 2002).(3) Empirical reductions as a result of volunteer-based donations: “The largest reductions in the incidence of transfusion- transmitted HCV infection have coincided with adoption of an all-volunteer donor system. In the USA, a more than threefold drop in the incidence of post-transfusion non-A, non-B hepatitis was observed in one veterans’ hospital after the proportion of paid donor blood used for transfusions was reduced from 91% to 4%.” (Shepard, 2005)Then my opponent argues that there can be clauses that punish people who “mislead” organ recipients.(1) Organ donors who have diseases may not know that they have the disease, but people who have STD’s and other diseases like these are more likely to donate given financial incentives(2) Given ‘window’ periods, there is no way to detect the diseases within the organs donated by diseased people, which means the damage will have already been done even if punishment is rendered. (3) All of this can simply be avoided without financial incentives! There are alternatives.Status quo solvency:In response to the Harvard ‘question’ study, my opponent asks this question: “If simply asking a question differently could get a huge increase in donations, why wasn’t that change made universally as quickly as possible?” Good question. Just because something has not been done does not mean it would not work. My argument is that IF this alternative exists, it would work and would therefore mean we would not need incentives. Extend the Harvard analysis.Extend: He dropped the evidence that said there has been a 21% increase in the status quo since 2001, with 11% increases in 2004 alone. This shows solvency in the status quo is possible.Deceased organs:He says that giving money for organs after death would incentivize people to donate. He never refutes the evidence I gave: "Incentives wont aid the shortage, as recent empirical evidence suggests that an increase in the number of living donors has a negative impact on the number of deceased donors." This is proven to be true in the Iranian market system, as the Lancet reports, deceased cadaveric donations in Iran have plummeted as a result of financial incentives.My opponent uses Iran as an example, and Iran proves deceased donations decrease, which means more people die since more are saved with deceased as opposed to living donors (50 compared to 1).PRO CASE:1.Shortage:(1) He cites Iran. Iran proves that deceased donations decrease which means less people are saved(2) Harvard: 6% responded that people would be more willing to donate with incentives, while 9% said they would be less likely.(3) Walter Graham points out that open markets would likely lead to exponential increases in foreigners coming to purchase American organs, which means OUR shortage is not solved. Foreigners have access to organs in the status quo as well. Also, the Lancet reports that this problem is evident in Iran.(4) Richard Titmuss compared U.S. commercial blood markets to UK altruistic system and concluded that incentives led to shortfalls since it discouraged the altruistic motivation. In other words, blood donations would have been higher if it were not for incentives. Christopher Hitchens reports that the UK meets all of its demand with an altruistic system. (5) The Human Security Journal reports that Spain eradicated its shortage by implementing a presumed consent policy. This increased their organ donation by 142%, proving there is no unique benefit to incentives2. Black Market:Non-unique since they would not need to go to black market with presumed consent, or any number of other alternatives that are not incentives.DROPS: - Journal of Transplantation explains that 35% of paid kidneys fail or are rejected after 36 months, while only 5% of non-paid kidneys suffer the same fate. This means that other alternatives that don’t include incentives should be preferred, and there is no reason to change a ban.- 51% get hepatitis with paid vs 0% with unpaid according to a meta-analysis. He drops the ‘window period’ for screening, so his refutation from future screening abilities fails since the evidence he drops indicates “this probably will never change (window period).