Posted on 08/14/2019 4:34:11 AM PDT by Kaslin
Have you volunteered to be an organ donor? I did.
I just clicked the box on the government form that asks if, once I die, I'm willing to donate my organs to someone who needs them.
Why not? Lots of people need kidneys, livers, etc. When I'm dead, I sure won't need mine.
Still, there are not enough donors. So, more than 100,000 Americans are on a waiting list for kidneys. Taking care of them is so expensive, it consumes almost 3% of the federal budget!
So why not allow Americans to sell an organ?
People already legally sell blood, plasma, sperm, eggs and bone marrow. Why not a kidney? People have two. We can live a full life with just one.
If the U.S. allowed people to sell, the waiting list for kidneys would soon disappear.
"Poor people are going to be hurt," replies philosophy professor Samuel Kerstein in my latest video. Kerstein advised the World Health Organization, which supports the near universal laws that ban selling organs.
"Body parts to be put into Americans will come from poor countries," warns Kerstein. "I don't want to see poor people in Pakistan having their lives truncated."
What arrogance.
People have free will. Poor people are just as capable of deciding what's best for them as rich people. Who are you, I asked Kerstein, to tell people they may not?
"We are people who care about people who are different from us," he replied, "and poorer than we are. That's why we care."
These are "vacuous moralisms," replies Lloyd Cohen, an attorney who's long argued against the ban on organ-selling.
"Transplant surgeons make money. Transplant physicians make money. Hospitals, drug companies make money," he points out. "Everybody can get paid except the person delivering the irreplaceable part!"
He's right, of course, except that today some donors do get paid. Whenever foolish governments ban things that many people want, black markets appear.
Some people go overseas and buy organs from shady middlemen. Some make secret deals in America.
The process would be much safer, and prices lower, if buying and selling were legal.
"Financial incentives work for everything!" says Cohen. "They work for food; they work for housing; they work for clothing!"
He calls the warnings that "the weak and poor will be exploited" paternalistic.
"We heard the same argument with surrogacy," he points out. "Then you interview the women. (They say) this is a wonderful thing that they can do. And they get paid!"
Oddly, the one country that allows the selling of organs is Iran. The government buys organs from people willing to sell. I don't trust statistics from Iran, but a PBS report claims legalization has dramatically reduced the waiting time for a kidney.
Twenty-four years ago, Cohen went on "60 Minutes" to argue for legalization of organ sales. At the time, he joined the debate simply because he strongly felt the ban was unjust. But now Cohen has learned that his own kidneys are failing. He needs a transplant.
He won't break the law and turn to the black market. He hopes to get a kidney though a group called MatchingDonors that pairs altruistic volunteers with people who need organs. Remarkably, a woman volunteered to give Cohen one of her kidneys. She's now being tested to see if she is a match for him.
If not, Cohen will be back on the waiting list with 102,914 other Americans. Most will die, waiting.
"Organs that could restore people to health and extend life are instead being buried and burned," sighs Cohen.
All because timid governments would rather suppress commerce than give patients a market-based new shot at life.
Before long you’ll be able to discharge your debts by selling yourself into indentured servitude. A bit after that it will become obligatory.
The Left doesn’t support the “my body” argument here. Only for genital mutilation and infanticide.
This is exactly why I changed to a non donor: “Transplant surgeons make money. Transplant physicians make money. Hospitals, drug companies make money,” he points out. “Everybody can get paid except the person delivering the irreplaceable part!” Until they pay my family for my body parts I will not be a “donor”!
This government is so corrupt and sick to its core, I suspect they are more likely to mandate all organs automatically are available for transplant...unless you formally “opt-out.”
A: ‘Cuz, in the Land of the Free, you do not OWN your *self*, much less....anything else govt would love to have (damn A1S8, 5th, 13th alone)
>> ... I changed to a non donor ... money ...
I am alive today because of a donated liver.
You go right ahead and let them cut you to shreds and “harvest” your body parts. You have every right to do that. But, please don’t tell me to do the same. I can see it now, I’m laying on the operating table and the surgeon says, “look , this guy has led a good life and a few of his parts still work, let’s just let him expire with no extra effort to keep him alive until we can pick a few extra parts (like going to Pull A Part at the junk yard) for our next gig.
No thanks.
I’ll donate my Wurlitzer Sideman.
Can someone donate a Hammond B3 to me?
Forget the $$ payout issue. It comes from middlemen hoping for a payoff. Donated organs come from suicides and from the “Rice Rocket” riding idiots that race by you on the expressways. Thanks to despair and “testosterone poisoning”, donors are mostly males in their 20s and 30s.
Suicides commonly leave behind a “wife” (often common law) and 1-3 kids. That sets a lasting example for the little ones, all too often to be repeated in their adulthood. Nice, huh?
There’s a lot more care & expense involved in live donors vs dead. Who will pay for all of it? Insurance companies? The gov’t?
I’ll give someone a great deal on my enlarged prostate.
“Can someone donate a Hammond B3 to me?”
Beat me to it. As an aside there’s a Hammond office not far from me. I had occasion to go there once. Sitting there in all its glory was a perfect condition working Hammond B3.
“Don’t even ask.” I was told.
L
I think the smart seller would include all of that in the price. You buy my kidney, pay for the doctors, hospital, my medicine, recovery, missed work, etc.
Anyway, how much can you get for a kidney?
I mean, everyone has a price, no?
While I was never given his name, I have a letter of thanks from a gentleman who received my brother's heart after he was killed in an auto accident.
Several years ago I contacted the organ donor organization that handled it if they could allow me to contact the recipient to see how he is doing but they could not due to confidentiality laws.
I have relatives in the health care industry. You bet that goes through their minds. It's more along the lines of: "Hey, look at this self-centered worthless individual here. But, he has a good heart. Too bad that environmentalist down the hall who needs a transplant will probably die in a month. What do you think we should do about that?"
I know a guy who donated a kidney to his wife.
Same here. If I’m dead and stuff is still in good enough shape to be of use then it’s also likely my family could use anything they can get
Until then absolutely not
You made me LOL.
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