He made planet earth in 6 days, right?? What's a small body part? Have you ever considered he heals people miraculously STILL?? Where's you faith Oh Israelies? You brought the world the old & new testament where it happened both places! Well?? I'm waiting for your answers..

an excellent rebuttal to those against selling organs" kol hakovod ! stuart cohen

... what I wrote? Note that I never once advocated complete deregulation of organ donation. Not once. What I do advocate is decriminalizing (there is a difference between decriminalization and deregulation) the black market that currently exists, reforming it and regulating it with as much stringency for health and compatibility of donors as currently exists in the non-profit system you work in. We can argue about ethics all day, but if there is one point I wish to impress upon you (and this will be my last response to you), it's that there will always exist a for-profit alternative for organ donation whether you like it or not. It is impossible to legislate it out of existence. Where people have money and a need for healthy organs, there will always be a market to service that need. It's an unavoidable fact of life and you don't need to work in the industry for 30 years to recognize it. What is also true is that people are being kidnapped and having their organs harvested without their consent, and that these stolen organs (which you cruelly call "mystery meat") offer little to no guarantee of health or compatibility with the recipient. This can and would be stopped or drastically lessened with decriminalization and regulation of the black market. Given the fact that we find ourselves in this situation, it is the moral duty of every government and medical professional (as defined by the Hippocratic Oath) to do what they can to eradicate the blights on humanity inherent in the current system. If you were to read and carefully consider the concrete logic behind my position, you would see that my argument does not "throw out ethics in exchange for a business plan." On the contrary, it seeks to extend the safety measures inherent in the current system to everyone involved in organ donation, and to ensure that all organ donations are done voluntarily. Call me evil, call me morally compromised, and call me any nasty name you want, but at the end of the day, I'm the one who advocates taking the only realistic steps to stamp out the evils associated with a form of organ donation that will always exist and in which innocent people will continue to suffer...

I didn't say we should buy organs from India and China. I said that now we get them in an abhornent manner from those places. If it were legal donors could be found in the patients own country and maybe even their own ethnic group. Here in Israel or in the US you would be taking from a generally healthy population. Why not fly the donor to the location of the operation, rather than transporting the organ? Instead of traffickers we have now, we would have a legal means of screening potential donors that meet hospital's strict criteria. I also meant that although Jewish law allows organ donation, many are rotting in cemetaries because people think that is it is not allowed. There are many examples of people taking up donations to help a sick person in their community. It happens all the time. You think the sysytem works now? Then why do patients have to go to China to get organs from executed prisioners; people killed for minor crimes that we would never execute for. And do you think they got due process? That is what is repulsive and immoral.

I personally would not sell my kidney. I would only give it to a close relative(one of my kids) if their life was in danger. I like having two, I don't like having operations and what if my one good kidney goes bad sometime in the future? I also think it is abhorrent to have babies for other people, but it is legal and people do it all the time. I find giving away your eggs or sperm highly questionable, but people do that too. I give my blood for free, but there are people who legally sell theirs. People sell parts of their bodies now all the time.

There's always someone making money, even with kidneys donated from someone who died. The person who dies and donates a kidney gets NO compensation, neither does the family. It's the hospital and doctors that make money from this donation. Why shouldn't a healthy person be able to make money by selling his/her own kidney?

Susan: Kidneys are not donated from the dead. To answer your last question, why don't you simply read the talkbacks? What is it you cannot fathom, except the ramifications of paying the poor to sell their healthy organs? Do you really believe that if you open the market, there will not be people preying upon the disenfranchised? May I ask you if you have ever heard of a thing called the Mexican mafia, or the Columbian drug cartel? How about the Chinese government, which has allowed the controlled execution of prisoners for their organs? If you believe that the only thing standing in the way of loads of people wishing to donate kidneys is some payment option let me assure you that the research does not reflect this. But to get back what should be your starting point, please learn the very basics of this subject before you make a decision--such as understandoing that major donations are not taken from the dead. This not so small factor was what the Swede based his entire premise upon when he maligned the IDF. Read. Learn. Then decide.

>"What is also true is that people are being kidnapped and having their organs harvested without their consent, and that these stolen organs (which you cruelly call "mystery meat") offer little to no guarantee of health or compatibility with the recipient. I am heartened to see you are repulsed as I am by the term I dcided to use, because the trafficking of bad organs and the preying upon the disadvantaged is disgusting. But to touch upon your points, yes I did read your post quite carefully and you have gone from proclaiming the issue to being around the supply and demand business plan which will allow poor people to give their kidneys and earn a few dollars, to now declaring first that you thre will alwasy be illegal trafficking (which as I said operates outside medical protocals and fleeces the ill and their families jsut before they die anyway from bad transplants) to now saying they should be regulated since there is a difference between decriminalizing and de regulating. There isn't. As I have worked hard to point out the present controlled ARE regulated by laws that are in place to (cup ear here) r-e-g-u-l-a-t-e the protocals (medical standards) of removal and transportation AND most importantly, rule outs which are a long and complex set of medical criteria that requires extensive work to ascertain with EACH patient and donor. One is the other, and as I said we are on lock down 24/7 and intensely monitored so that the tissue is controlled and no MEDICAL mistakes are made. There is no need to pay evil people to traffick organs, Joe. There is a need to educate the public on donations. Handing criminals money only makes criminals want more money, Joe. This can and would be stopped or drastically lessened with decriminalization and regulation of the black market.

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