Organs: Should Human Organs Be Allowed for Sale?

Organs: Should Human Organs Be Allowed for Sale?

As science is developing and evolving we have a new debate starting that whether human organs should be legalized for sale to those who suffer from various diseases and need prompt organ transplantation. The common belief is that it should be legalized as it can help someone live a new life. There is a trend in the world that whatever can give you huge profits can be badly exploited. Thus, such is the case with vital human organs such as the kidneys, heart, lungs and liver as they are being sold on enormously high prices. However, I do not believe that the government has a right to tell people what they can and cannot do to their own body organs.

On average there are 15 people who die every day waiting for an appropriate organ transplant in the United States (Weekes, 2001). The black market in human organ trade has already shot up solving the crippling shortage of kidney donors. Recently an American citizen was arrested in Rome selling human pancreas and heart to the Italian doctors. In China three officials were charged for offering organs for sale of the executed prisoners.

When asked who would actually remove the organs, the police official said a doctor and a nurse would arrive in an ambulance. "Immediately after the execution, the coroner would examine the corpse and certify the death. The corpse would then be taken immediately inside the ambulance, where the necessary organs are removed. The corpse is then taken out of the ambulance and returned to the family. No one has seen the doctor or nurse, and no one is aware of the reason why they were there."

While the trade thrives in China, Hong Kong and the Philippines, it is also strong in the Middle East. ...

While a poor man can make a few thousand dollars, it's the middlemen - the people who bring foreign buyers and sellers together - who really profit. One such middleman, who agreed to talk anonymously about his business, met with Insight late one night on a side street on the outskirts of Cairo. A smooth-talking operator, fluent in English, French and Italian as well as his native Arabic, he wore expensive European clothes, chain-smoked Gauloise cigarettes and sat in the backseat of a gold Mercedes as he described some of the kidney transplants he had arranged. "It's very simple, and it happens all the time," he says. "The first one was in 1987. I was working at the Sheraton el-Gezira, and there was a guest staying there, a Kuwaiti. He'd been asking around about finding someone who would sell their kidney, and I went up to see him. He was about 30. He said he'd made arrangements for the operation, but had to find a donor. And he said he'd pay $9,000.

"So I got in touch with my brother, who's a soldier in the Seqoa Oasis. He had a houseboy there, a Bedouin.