Any debate on whether people should be given any right to sell their organs should start by first considering ownership of the human body. While alive, that ownership is generally accepted as the right of each individual person, who is given the right to do almost anything he/she wants to with his/her body. There are some restrictions to this right, with people being legally barred from committing suicide or entering into a contract making them slaves of another person, even if they voluntarily wish for this to happen. Here, we come to the point in whether we should allow every person to freely dispose of his or her organs, including selling and buying their organs in a case of need. .
In today's world, so much medically and technologically advanced, where it is possible to improve and extend human life by transplanting organs, I believe that free organ market is very much needed. In 2001, only in the US, 6000 people died waiting for transplant organs that never came. And how many more it will die, considering the increasing number of people who are going to be added to that waiting list. .
There are a lot of pro and con arguments used by the both sides in this "conflict". The first and most common reason is that primarily poor people are going to be disadvantaged by this free organ market. They are going to be coerced into selling their organs. In absence of other means of supporting themselves they are going to sell their organ(s) to some rich guy who needs it and can afford to pay for it. Why do we think that this is amoral? Is it the rich guy "fault" that he/she is rich and can actually pay for its health? Don't we already pay high prices in health care costs to insurance companies to have health coverage? Doesn't the Medicaid covers and pays the health coverage for poor, and in the year 1985, the Medicare program paid $285 millions for kidney transplants alone? If we really think that riches exploits the poor why don't we change our whole system and make everybody rich and able to pay for transplant.
