Equal Opportunity to Suffer and Die

I've been reading lots of good posts and articles lately on the dire situation regarding organ needs vs. donation levels (e.g., kidneys).

David Holcberg recently wrote an excellent op-ed on this subject, Human Organs for Sale? It ends as follows:

If your life depended on getting an organ, say a kidney or a liver, wouldn’t you be willing to pay for one? And if you could find a willing seller, shouldn’t you have the right to buy it from him? The right to buy an organ is part of your right to life. The right to life is the right to take all actions a rational being requires to sustain and enhance his life. Your right to life becomes meaningless when the law forbids you to buy a kidney or liver that would preserve your life. If the government upheld the rights of potential buyers and sellers of organs, many of the 90,000 people now waiting for organs would be spared hideous suffering and an early death. How many? Let’s find out.

Also, there was a brief blog post from Virginia Postrel with lots of great links. Included is a link to the Monday, June 12 conference from AEI titled "Buy or Die: Market Mechanisms to Reduce the National Organ Shortage" (video is available online). Postrel's own presentation at this conference is available online as a PDF of her PPT. She also links to a brief news item on the recent AMA ruling change that allows as ethical the solicitation of organs if it helps to increase the organ supply. That is at least a step in the right direction...

On June 10, Postrel wrote a great Op-Ed for the LA-Times titled Cash for Kidneys.

And Craig Biddle at the Objective Standard journal blogged on the connection between the morality of altruism and the suffering and unnecessary deaths caused by current policy against a free-market for organ donation. (The title of this blog post derives from a quotation in that blog entry.)