Should people be allowed to sell their organs?

Surely you can understand some of the ethical concerns, can’t you?

After all, if people can be hoodwinked out of their life’s savings to make bad / frivolous or totally fraudulent “investments” – and that’s just money! – imagine what could happen if people were convinced to sell both kidneys, or a liver. And don’t for a second imagine that no doctor would perform such an operation, because surely some would, even if it meant the likely death or incapacity of the donor.

Or take another case, where a parent or guardian acting in loco parentis decides – and has full legal authority – to sell a child’s kidney.

I’m in favor of relaxing the absolute prohibition against a free market in human organs, but I certainly understand the valid ethical concerns that drive that prohibition so far.

Anyone can donate, a kidney, bone marrow, many things, but, obviously, certain organs like hearts and livers are only one per life. I don’t have a problem with a consenting adult deciding to sell an expendable organ. @CWOTUS Do you really think someone would sell BOTH their kidneys or their heart, knowing it would mean death? It would take a pretty dismal IQ to fall for that scheme. haha

Parents selling their childrens organs is another matter entirely.
Absolutely not. They are not their organs to sell/donate except upon death.
If I could sell one of my Corneas and make a half mil, and be blind in one eye, hell yes, I’d do it, that would fund my retirement. hah’

No. And I was opposed to the parents who had a child in order to have bone marrow for their ailing daughter, even though it all worked out.

@Coloma I think that people are ignorant enough to not know, and others who are unscrupulous enough not to tell them … and some who are stupid enough to make the choice, even with the knowledge. (Some might do it out of a misguided sense of “providing for the family”, for example.)

@CWOTUS I dunno, I’m not that paranoid about this, just like the right to die. Unscrupulous things could happen but I don’t think it would be nearly, if at all, what people dream up, the worst case scenarios. How could someone be so stupid that they didn’t realize that selling their heart would mean they would be dead and therefore not passing go or collecting the $200.00 and if someone wants to sell their heart to “provide” for their family, well, better than suicide for a life insurance policy. Actually, that would be the ultimate in altruism if you ask me.

@zenvelo what? Did that really happen?

It should be, without restriction, otherwise it is hypocrisy to say one is in control of their being. If what the person wants to sell endangers them, they are their own man and should be allowed to undertake any risk if they so choose. 

LOL

Selling body parts so “It would also make college a lot more affordable to a lot of people” is so fucked up beyond belief.

HAHAHAHAHAHA

@johnpowell I never said it wasn’t!

@trolltoll Yes, it happened

Well strippers sell their body parts to help finance their college educations every day. They just get to keep those parts in the end. lol