Kidney Transplants

Okay, so last night on Law & Order SVU the episode was about black market kidney transplants.

I was curious, so I looked up some statistics on ustransplant.org.

According to their reports there were 50,855 people on the kidney transplant waiting list at the end of 2002. It is also reported that there were 3396 people who died that year waiting for a kidney.

Obviously, with a US estimated population of about 288 million people, it would be safe to assume that there were at least 50,855 healthy people with kidneys out there that they could donate. The problem is, what is a person's motivation for donating a kidney?

The argument on LAOSVU last night was that if it were legal to sell kidneys then there would be a lot of people willing to sell their kidneys and lives could be saved. The other side of the argument is that if organs were for sale to the highest bidder, then only the richest people would get transplants.

I'm not sure where I stand on this issue. Obviously, it's against the law to sell organs here in the U.S., but should it be? In this country a lot of people argue about the right to do whatever we want to our own bodies, this argument is heard most often for abortion rights. I don't agree with this argument when it comes to murdering babies, but it could sway me when you're talking about saving other peoples lives. It is within our rights to donate organs voluntarily, it just isn't legal to benefit from it financially.