Vadim, 33, used to be an alcoholic —having ended up at a rehabilitation clinic for nine months, he could not manage his debts, which eventually loaded up to an unthinkable million rubles. His kidney is worth five million on the black market, he says, and without the organ, he will have twenty years more to live (“The Backbone Kidney”[Pochka Opory]). In fact, even though Vadim’s story is not unique, he is one of the few willing to risk their lives and violate the law in order to survive. All the medical implications of the case aside, how moral is it to criminalize a market for human organs sale while often it is the last hope for people to increase their well-being. Should humans be allowed to exchange their parts for material goods? In this essay, I will claim that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with this granted it is done by consented capable adults. I will then challenge my view by the arguments against it and see if it holds its ground. Before starting, the basic terms should be clarified. Organ sale is an expression that refers to a variety of practices covering such things as donating organs posthumously and sale of body products (blood, hair and other items). Nonetheless, this essay will concentrate on selling kidneys, “the most commonly transplanted organ” (Wilkinson). The free market is a system in which the agents of …show more content…
According to the view, if a person sells one of the parts of their body, they treat their body “a foreign object” . Supporters of the argument claim that this is a wrongful perspective when talking about something inseparable. What is problematic about this charge, though, is that apart from the human organ markets it prohibits what is currently legal: selling body products and even donating organs. The current laws do however, not prohibit those practices, so if one wants to eliminate alienation, they would have to ban donors as