DetectableNinja's Tournament: Sale of Human Organs

A. The Waiting List "Instead of signing up for organ donation upon death, a person could agree to selling organs upon death, and the money would go to their beneficiary." How exactly is this an incentive? The person knows they will never see the money. There is no tangible reward here, and intangible rewards simply aren't as compelling. "Also, kidneys and livers, two of the most commonly needed organ transplants, can be taken out without detriment to the person's health." In most cases, yes. However, every surgery involves risk. Naturally, people will want more money to make the risk worthwhile. Not everyone can afford this money, which means poor people will not be any more likely to have their needed organs than they do now. This only benefits those with enough money to pay for the organs. I'm all for helping the rich, but I think it is imperative that we help the poor. The sale of organs actually hurts them, because no one will donate an organ for free why could get paid for it. Because of the risk and recovery time involved, only people with a significant amount of money will be able to afford the price the organ sellers are asking. Donors don't benefit from their gift The medical professionals involved in the transplant have training the donor does not. Think of it this way, everyone has organs. Few people have medical training. It is essential that these people with medical training are involved in the transplant process, so it is important to promise payment to them to make it worthwhile to attend medical school. No special raining is required to have a spare kidney you could donate, any random person can do that. Instead of the promise of payment to entice potential donors, I suggest an ad campaign similar to what McDonald's uses. People go to McDonald's knowing that it will harm them (unlike donating an organ) and knowing that they will lose money (rather than make money, as you suggest). Black Market The black market sales are actually a good thing. The $100,000 for a lung goes to feed the family of someone who likely doesn't have any other marketable skill, which is why they are selling organs on the black market anyway. Legalizing the sale of human organs would put these people out of a job. You also mention that people take the organs of corpses and kill people for their organs. Murder is already illegal, so the solution to that would be to penalize the people that are killing for organs. I don't see the harm in someone taking the organs of a corpse. No one is using it, and if someone is willing to pay for that, then that is their mistake. Fossilized Body Parts This is not relevant to the debate, as the fossilization process replaces the tissue with minerals, meaning these do not fit the definition of organs. Custom Body Parts These do not fit the definition of human organs, as the definition of human is "a bipedal primate mammal of the genus Homo; of, relating to, or characteristic of humans body". These are not fro bipedal primates of the genus homo. They also are not characteristic of the human body because they are growing on rodents. My Argument The sale of human organs has no benefit to society as a whole. Because they know they can make much-needed money off of them, poor people will sell their organs to people who n afford them (the rich). The people that would ordinarily donate their organs would not because they can now get paid for them. In effect, rich people get healthier while the poor die off from organ failure.