American ingenuity and free enterprise at their best. Currently, prospects are grim for people in need of organ transplants. For every 100,000 transplant operations needed each year, only 10,000 are performed. Biomedical breakthroughs have greatly increased our capacity to perform successful transplants, increasing the demand for transplantable organs. But the supply of organs has not increased.
Many people are simply reluctant to donate their bodily parts.
In response to the shortage, proposals have come forth advocating the sale of non-vital human organs. Thousands upon thousands of patients die each year simply because of an inadequate supply of organs. Patients needing kidneys wait years in hope of donors, all the while undergoing painful and costly dialysis treatments. Allowing a commercial market in organs could put an end to needless deaths and suffering by increasing the supply of organs. One need only look at the success of the commercial markets in increasing the supply of blood and sperm.