Payment for living organ donation should be legalised

At 4:12 pm Eastern Standard Time, Oct. 6, 2006, the Organ Procurement
Transplant Network for the United States listed 93,364 patients on the
waiting list for transplants. It also reports that so far this year fewer
than half those needing transplants actually got them. Why is it that we
are so hesitant about allowing people to sell their organs? In the U.S.
we allow the sale of blood, sperm, eggs, hair, and the renting of bodies
for use in experiments, surrogate motherhood, and in some states
prostitution. The dangers associated with some of these later choices
are greater than those associated with live organ donation. Why are we
not allowing people to help themselves while helping others? We encourage
and pay policemen and firefighters, doctors and nurses, emergecy medical
service(EMS) personnel and numerous others to put themselves at risk to
save lives. Why not let someone who is in financial need, or someone who
would just like to be financially better off, donate a kidney? It just
doesn’t make sense.

Competing interests:
None declared