The U.S. federal government should permit the sale of human organs.

I will firstly establish my case and then attack my opponent's case.I. Humans have the right to sell their organs. Thomas Jefferson once said, "If it neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket, what difference is it to me?" Organ selling is not affecting society and it is not effecting each person's pocket. It is not causing people to die- in fact, it is saving lives. Martin Wilkinson, former chairman of the New Zealand Bioethics Council, stated "selling an organ should no longer be a criminal offence" and that "punishing people for trying to sell their organs ... infringes on a right to decide what to do with one's own body"People have a right to do whatever they want with their own bodies. If someone wants to sell an organ, that is their decision, and no matter how poor that decision is, it isn't effecting anyone except that person and the person whose life has just now been saved.II. Organ selling saves lives. According to Santa Clara University, only 10,000 in 100,000 organ transplants needed are actually performed- roughly 10%. That means the other 90,000 aren't getting the organs they need to sruvive. 90,000 people are dying every year, and we could almost entirely get rid of it if just .02% of people sold an organ (90,000 divided by the number of American people). Even if just .005% of Americans sold an organ, 22500 lives would be saved. David E. Jefferies stated, "A new system is needed, one that commercializes organs in a global network. By allowing people to contract for the exchange of organs for monetary consideration, the market opens up financial incentives that increase the available supply of organs.". This shows that by giving people reason to sell their organs, more and more organs will be available and thus deaths will be reduced. By banning the sale of organs, we are effectively commiting homicide. III. The government should not be involved in moral issues, unless the moral issues concern life and money lost because of someone else. The American people are more and more agreeing with this- according to a gallup poll, the nation in 2006 was divided at 48% and 48% over whether or not the government should promote moral values. This is up from the 38% and 60% (Where the 38% thought the government should NOT promote moral values) that there was in 1996. People are more and more agreeing with our founding fathers- the founding fathers envisioned a land where we could be free and act as we wanted. They envisioned a land where we could be free, with a government that stayed out of moral and religious issues like these and instead worked on issues that actually harmed others, physically or economically.http://www.vhl.org...;http://www.scu.edu...;http://www.gallup.com...;Now onto my opponent's case-C1- As I stated in my third contention, the government isn't about "ethics". A. We wouldn't be assigning a value to someone significantly more than we already are. Right now, we already do assign values People like President Obama and Bill Gates are considered to have a higher societal value than people who work at Mc Donalds and Burger King. In terms of monetary value, someone with a PHD gets paid much more than someone with just a high school diploma. A pricetag on organs also wouldn't change much from person to person- of course the person buying the organ would only buy a good organ, so most of the values would be the same. As for my opponent's argument about banks demanding a kidney to repay a loan- a kidney would only be a commodity if it is up for sale. In that area, the bank wouldn't demand a kidney to repay a loan because it violates liberties even more than banning the sales of organs. They cannot take you against your will to a hospital. They could offer it as an option in order to pay back loans, but that would just be a benefit to our economy rather than a detriment to someone's liberty.B. The market wouldn't "exploit" the poor- the market would help the poor become less poor. As I stated, if someone wants to sell an organ, it is their own decision. Also my opponent's quote from Sandhya Srinvisan is about India- this is about the U.S.. When the kidney sale was banned, the poverty level was between 42 and 60%. That is a lot more poor than we have in the U.S.- and the true "rich" in India are more like our American middle class. In America, there aren't enough poor to exploit- everyone is looking for a little extra cash, and everyone who is dying would pay anything to live.CIIYour point about altruism isn't very relevent- our economy is driven by selfishness. That is how capitalism works, and how we suceed. Even donating an organ isn't done altruistically- sometimes its because YOU don't want to lose your family, or because YOU want to feel better aobut yourself. The difference here is that selling an organ that you don't need gives YOU money for survival.Also, altruism isn't a real reason why the U.S. Government should not permit the sales of organs- the government shouldn't outlaw things that people do for selfish reasons- because then, most of the things we do would be illegal.http://www.worldbank.org.in...;