Please! Do not allow the sale of vital organs in the US.

[HereSince1628]

This is so so wrong.

I cannot believe I actually heard this idea getting promotion on ABC news.

IT IS WRONG for the rich and the medical industry to exploit the poor.

You DO NOT have a spare kidney, or lung, or eye. Just because you have 2 does not mean that a rich person should have the right to bid on your replicate parts. And the insurance/medical complex should not be putting dollar value on body parts (60K for a kidney) that they think you may have available for sale.

A person being poor and having trouble meeting financial obligations is no reason to EXPLOIT the integrity of that person's body. It is no license to cheat them of their vital organs.

I have no problem with a person making the courageous decision to DONATE their vital organs.

But...

I am absolutely opposed to using the poor and under-insured as potential source of body parts for the rich and adequately insured.

$60K for a kidney is NOTHING compared to the costs of surviving kidney failure and the cost replacing your LAST kidney.

THERE MUST NOT BE A FREE MARKET IN HUMAN BODY PARTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Quakerfriend]

1. I agree. However, on another note, there is already a VERY

lucrative, and active, underground market in all sorts of body parts. Beware, anyone who thinks that their loved one's wishes are being honored once they have passed on. And, if you think you are going to be cremated- THINK AGAIN!

Body Brokers by Mary Cheney (no relationship!) (2006) is a must read!!

[thecrow]

2. Reminds me of that guy on Lost

icky!

[sam sarrha]

3. i admire your concern ...Sorry, but i got bills to pay.

[LiberalHeart]

4. Wow, I just posted a story about the sale of kidneys, then saw your post.

I don't like the "sound" of selling body parts, but I do like the health improvements it could bring to many who are suffering.

Of course, then there would be the have-nots and those unable to access the organs...

It's all a mess.

[Zookeeper]

6. Yes...

I have a child with Type 1 Diabetes who could end up with kidney problems in the future. I would want her to have every opportunity to live.

But, I would hate to see a situation where it was all poor people supplying organs for the rich. At the rate we're going, though, there would be lots of deep-in-debt, middle-class people selling their kidneys as well.

[pitohui]

5. why should i give away for nothing so everybody else up to and including bill frist can profit?

i actually do have a big problem w. being told to DONATE a crucial redundancy when everybody else in the room (surgeon, hospital, stockholders) are making heap big profits off the transplant surgery

as long as this is a capitalist country, i should be paid for giving up something that significant -- and by the way $60K is an insult, won't even begin to cover any complications i could have in later life as a result of giving up a kidney, a payment of more like 10 times the price would be more fair in my opinion

[HereSince1628]

7. It is a misunderstanding that makes you think you have a redundant vital organ

If everyting goes well with your life, you might not be dependent upon a single kidney, but then, if you give one away something HAS NOT gone right with your physiology and you are totally dependent on an organ that you are asking twice as much from. You are absolutely vulnerable to the loss of your remaining part, and the money that is being offerred (60K for a kidney) hardly covers 2 years cost in a bargain treatment facility.

The creation of a market in organs will simply exploit the assymetries of wealth to the cost of the life expectancy of the poor.

[Karenina]

8. Survival of the richest!

[HereSince1628]

9. Yes, and I'm trying not to vomit on my keyboard. This makes me sick.

How is it that we can see the subjugation of the peasants by the kulaks who turned them into slaves as wrong, or the sale of Africans as beasts of burden, and not see that this is absolutely NOT in the interests of the sellors who will ultimately be caste as human waste into early graves?

[RB TexLa]

10. There is a market for body parts, it's a black market but it's there