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

BOP: Con claims, “My opponent must show (1) that a market does not facilitate the spread of disease/decreased quality and (2) a market would actually work and provide UNIQUE benefits that cannot be provided in the status quo. Any non-unique benefits should be ignored since they can, by definition, be derived through other, less risky means.”This is absurd. All I have to show is that laws banning organ markets are illegitimate, for whatever reason. If I show that this is true without showing that there wouldn’t be more disease, for example, I have fulfilled my BOP.Discourse Ethics and Self-Ownership: To do anything at all, one must exercise one’s right to exclusive control over one’s body—self-ownership. So, when making an argument, one first presumes self-ownership. Therefore, anyone arguing against self-ownership—saying people don’t have the right to do what they want with their own organs, for example—logically contradicts themselves. Because of this, Con’s entire argument is logically incoherent, as is any possible argument made supporting laws against organ sales.Disease: First, the potential for the spread of disease to organ recipients is a non-issue. The question of whether the benefits of getting a needed organ outweigh the potential risks can only be answered by the individuals concerned. No one can legitimately tell another person that the risks outweigh the benefits for that person—how would anyone but each different individual be able to judge that? Con's Source 1—The full sentence of Con’s quote from this source is, “Though the evidence is disputed, some have argued that paying blood donors lessened the overall quality of the blood supply, at least initially, because it encouraged prospective donors to conceal disease, drug use, or other factors that would make their blood medically unacceptable.” Which, of course, doesn't mean the same thing as Con's quote would have. All the source says is that there may or may not be an initial decrease in the quality of blood, but the evidence isn't conclusive either way. In the next paragraph, the source says that, “In blood donation, routine donor and laboratory screening tests have largely eradicated any quality differences between blood from unpaid versus paid donors. Similar screening techniques for organ donation would maintain the high quality of the organ supply regardless of incentives. Incentives could even enhance the quality of the organ supply if payments were made only after the organs had been judged medically suitable. . . In short, quality concerns most likely can be avoided with appropriate regulations governing the use of incentives.” [1]Con’s other empirical evidence is misleading. Those rates of problems and infections are only true in the status quo—they could easily be eradicated by allowing a free market in organs. Organ contracts could include a clause says that if the organ seller misleads the buyer about the safety of the organ, the money is taken back and the seller is executed/goes to jail/whatever. This simple change would fix the problem discussed earlier, of people concealing disease/drug use to get the organ money. Of course, complications could still happen, but only ones that couldn’t be prevented by testing or by the donor telling the truth, so they’d only be the same complications you’d see from non-paid donors.In addition, the statistics he cites are of hepatitis infections in blood. While we couldn’t effectively test for hepatitis when Con’s sources collected the data, we can now. Unless Con can cite recent data regarding undetectable blood infections causing problems, this point is moot.Solving the Organ Shortage without a Market:All of Con’s points here are completely irrelevant. Maybe we could increase organ donations by asking questions differently. So what? Con hasn’t shown that we could actually solve the organ shortage, rather than just somewhat alleviate it, with this or other methods. Furthermore, the fact that there are simple, easy ways to increase the amount of organ donation, like asking families differently, actually helps my case. If simply asking a question differently could get a huge increase in donations, why wasn’t that change made universally as quickly as possible? The best way to find and implement these changes is to make sure there are incentives to do so. By making cadaver donations profitable, we’d give hospitals much more incentive to make changes that increase donations. And who knows what other simple changes could increase the amount of organs available for transplant? The best way to find and implement these potential changes is by creating a market, which creates large incentives for these changes.The points about living vs. decreased donations are also irrelevant. Allowing a free market in organs would mean allowing a market for both living donors AND deceased donors. People could agree to sell their organs before they die, or the money could be offered to families after death. As Con pointed out, a dead body could save as many as 50 lives—which would make the price paid to families for the organs quite high, creating an incentive to donate the organs much greater than could be made without a market.Problems Market Would Solve:1. Organ ShortageAs noted before, Con has provided no evidence that the organ shortage can be solved without markets, only alleviated somewhat. Markets, on the other hand, have been proven effective. In Iran, where kidney sales have been legalized, the waiting list for kidney transplants has been eliminated. [2] 2. Black Market DangersWithout the option of legal organ sales, and the lack of organs donated for free, dying people are forced to turn to the black market for organ sales. This is much more dangerous for both the donor and recipient, as procedures aren’t done as safely as they would be in an American hospital, and organs are often poorly evaluated for safety and matching. [3] [4]Sources:[1] American Medical Association.. "Financial Incentives for Organ Procurement: Ethical Aspects of Future Contracts for Cadaveric Donors" Arch Internal Medicine Journal. 1995 Mar 27; Vol. 155. http://www.ama-assn.org...[2] Ghods AJ, Savaj S (November 2006). "Iranian model of paid and regulated living-unrelated kidney donation". Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology 1 (6): 1136–45. http://cjasn.asnjournals.org...[3] Scheper-Hughes, pp. 191–222; M. Goyal et al., “Economic and Health Consequences of Selling a Kidney in India,” Journal of the American Medical Association 288, no. 13 (2002): 1589–93.[4] A. S. Daar, “Money and Organ Procurement: Narratives from the Real World,” in Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues in Organ Transplantation, ed. T. H. Gutmann, A. S. Daar, R. Sells, and W. Land, (Lengerich, Germany: Pabst Publishers, 2004).