Organs and capitalism // Zaira and Sarahi

For our final in Biomed we’ll debating certain controversial issues that real people have had to deal with.  As most of us do plan to pursue some kind of career in medicine we will have to face difficult situations where we will have to make ethical decisions. This is just preparing us. Zaira and I have partnered up to debate the topic about whether or not organs should be sold legally. We will be on the affirmative side, meaning we are for the legal sale of organs. In the United States 18 people die everyday waiting for an organ transplant, and making organ sales legal would significantly decrease the amount of people that die because of this situation. Making organ sales legal would not only save lives but it would make people much more willing/open to the concept of donating their organs. People have two kidneys, if they manage a healthy lifestyle only having one won’t be so difficult to deal with. With our recent advancements in medicine this method will bring us even further. It is legal to sell your bone marrow which goes against the NOTA act of 1984. If making profit from selling your bone marrow is lawful then why isn’t selling organs allowed? Being able to sell healthy organs before they become weak and frail allows researchers and scientists to make their study on human anatomy a lot more accurate than it is now. Our opposing side might argue that it will create a bigger gap between the rich and the poor, making organs much more inaccessible to poor people. This is why regulations will be created and enforced, it has already been proven to be successful in countries such as the Philippines. This will benefit not only the people who have been waiting for a certain organ on a list for years, scientist and researchers around the world, or healthy beings looking to make money off of a spare organ. Someone could say this is killing two birds with one stone.