Selling Organs Essay Example

Satz has considered the many dimensions to selling organs, and while they have gone over the many different dimensions of organ donation, specifically kidneys, it appears they are in favor of it. Much like the sale of guns, Satz realizes that even if harsher restrictions are placed on selling organs, they are made illegal, or those who sell organs are penalized more severely, the desperate will always find a way. Those selling organs are likely poor, and in desperate need of the money. Those who are forcibly taking the organs from individuals probably do not care about the crime they are committing, the lives at stake, are the consequences. Rather than waste time enforcing these fruitless consequences, then, Satz suggests we take stock in why individuals donate, the seemingly unending need for organ donations, and pour or efforts into a policy that allows individuals to donate their organs, while alive, legally.
He assesses weak agency, vulnerability, harmful social inequality, and harmful social outcome in an effort to assess whether it is worth a legitimate organ donation market, and whether it is fair. While kidneys, of all organs, scored high on all fronts, making them dangerous and undesirable as a subsidized market, this was also precisely why Satz believed they needed to be cornered as a legal function in society. The poor were being singled out, essentially having their kidneys harvested by the rich in these scenarios. It would be unlikely that such desperate and unsanitary situations would take place with government-backed policies in place. Admittedly, it may decrease the number of altruistic donations, but it would protect those who found themselves in situations wherein they thought there was no other choice but to donate an organ to the black market. The black market itself would see a sufficient decline in business, while organ donations would not decline in the process.