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

Self-Ownership:1) Con argues that this only shows that people should be allowed to sell their organs, but not that they should be allowed to sell them to people who want to put them in their bodies. This ignores the right of the recipients to do what they want with their own bodies.2) I didn’t concede anything about government regulation of organ sales. The only time I mentioned regulation was when quoting Con’s Source 1, to show what the source actually said. And ‘regulation’ doesn’t necessarily mean forced government regulation, which would be the only kind that would contradict self-ownership. Regulation could be voluntary regulations set up by doctors, hospitals, organ matching organizations, whatever. And surely people would not need the government to force regulations on them—people buying organs would want standards for transplants, and would agree to them voluntarily3) While people don’t use their kidneys to communicate, they must exercise control over their entire body in order to communicate. You can’t only use your brain and vocal cords—if you are controlling part of your body, you are necessarily controlling your entire body. 4) It shows that all arguments for organ bans are illegitimate. If there is no legitimate arguments for continuing organ bans, the government should stop banning organs. This is a crucial distinction—the government legalizing sales wouldn’t be like flipping a switch from one policy decision to another, with switching from the status quo to the new policy being the active choice. Legalizing is just the government not actively banning sales any more—arguments are needed for the pro-banning side to justify its active continuation. Disease:People’s right to take risks with their own lives-1) The problem with Con’s argument here is that there aren’t other ways for people to get organs. You can’t wait on a waiting list forever—especially if you need a vital organ, like a liver, rather than a kidney, which is easier to wait for.2) That point wasn’t dropped—my original point here is the same, regardless of Con’s ‘window-period’ point. It doesn’t matter if people are accepting organs “blind”—that’s how risk works, you always don’t know what’s going to happen when you take a risk (and people could know the odds of infection—there are statistics on the subject that they could look at). Whether this risk is worth taking can only be determined by individuals themselves.3) That doesn’t make it impossible, it just makes organ sales riskier. And if people want to take that risk with their own lives, rather than wait for a donor, that’s their decision to make.Statistics, difference between paid and unpaid-1) This does not ignore the ‘window-period.’ Con’s own source said that differences in disease from people that got paid and unpaid transplants have been eradicated. If these undetectable window-period diseases made a difference in the disease rate of the recipients, then that difference would not have been eradicated. 2+3) As I said before, while there was difficulty screening for certain diseases in the past, we now have better methods of screening, which is why Con hasn’t provided any recent evidence of a significant amount of infections from paid donations. The window period is a problem if the only test you have is for antibodies of the virus you’re looking for, but if you can look for the virus itself (that is, the RNA), which we can now do, it is no longer an issue. Tests are now so accurate that only 1 in several million units of donor blood is infected with hepatitis C, for example, which is why Con can’t find any RECENT evidence about transplanted infections.Clauses for punishing donors of diseased organs-1) While someone may not know if they have an STD, they would know if they have had unprotected sex recently, or engaged in other risky behavior. It doesn’t matter if they’re ignorant of their disease—they just have to be honest about their behavior.2) See 1, about risky behavior. Also my previous point about how we have better screening technology now.Status Quo:Con misses my point here. An organ market would create much greater incentives for implementing that easy fix, and others that we don’t know about yet. It doesn’t matter that they “could” be implemented without an organ market—they aren’t. We “could” get a sudden giant increase in altruism that completely alleviates the organ shortage, without needing an organ market. But we don’t have that, just as we don’t have a system that gets hospitals to implement the easy fixes that would increase the amount of organs available. Furthermore, Con hasn’t provided evidence that this would be enough to fix the organ shortage, rather than alleviate it.I didn’t drop Con’s evidence about the increase in donations, I just pointed out that it is irrelevant, since it doesn’t support Con’s claim that we can solve the organ shortage without markets, it just shows that we can make the organ shortage slightly less bad without markets.Deceased Organs:The evidence Con gave doesn’t refute anything I said. As I said, allowing payment for cadavers would create a huge incentive for families to allow those cadavers to be donated. The case of Iran, which Con cites as evidence, does not disprove this, since Iran did not legalize the sale of cadaver organs, only kidneys. Pro Case:1. Shortage:1) See my previous point under ‘Deceased Organs.’2) Obviously, there’s something wrong with this poll, since, as stated before, the legalization of the kidney market in Iran eliminated the waiting list for kidneys completely.3) Well, if we’re including the effects of foreigners, then there’s no reason foreigners couldn’t also come in to donate organs. Also, what difference does it make if foreigners get organs rather than Americans? A life is a life, there’s no reason that saving more foreigners lives should be less significant than saving more American lives.4) Irrelevant, because we’re talking about organ markets, not blood markets. I’ve already provided evidence that markets for organs work—it doesn’t matter if markets for blood have problems. Maybe people just don’t care as much about compensation for blood, because the compensation would be such a small amount. But that problem isn’t there for organ donation.5) Spain does have a much higher than average organ donation rate, but when comparing all presumed consent countries to all informed consent (what the U.S. has now) countries, the difference is much lower. [1] Even under presumed consent, families can, and often do, refuse donation—a problem that could be significantly alleviated by offering those families financial compensation. There’s no evidence that this would fix the organ shortage, eliminating the need for markets.2. Black MarketStill unique as long as non-market options alleviate the organ shortage, rather than eliminate it, which I’ve shown is the case. As long as there are people who need organs and are willing to buy them (and can find people willing to sell them), which would still be the case, even with Con’s fixes, the black market would still exist.Drops:-Was not dropped. I responded by saying that 1) that was the case in the status quo, not in a free market 2) we have better tests now and 3) it’s up to individuals themselves to decide whether it’s better to take the risk or keep waiting-Also wasn’t dropped. I said that while we had those problems testing for hepatitis before, we don’t anymore, which is true. Con’s source saying that tests “probably will never change” is irrelevant—they’ve already changed.[1] Cameron, Stuart and John Forsythe. 2001. "How Can We Improve Organ Donation Rates? Research into the Identification of Factors which May Influence the Variation." Nefrología 21, 68-77.