SemiConscious Dot Org

For years now, our great Nation, preoccupied with such fripperies as war, terrorism, erosion of civil liberties, and economic collapse, has sadly turned a blind eye to one of the worst injustices ever perpetrated in the history of the world. This egregious oppression goes on right under our noses, day after day, and no one does a thing about it. The cry of this maligned and persecuted group has often been ruthlessly drowned out, yet they shall never be silenced! If you listen very closely, you can hear their voices pleading for justice:

“Why, O Why, Will No One Let Us Sell Our Organs to the Highest Bidder?”

But fear not! Martyrs for the sainted cause of organ-selling have a champion in libertarian reporter John Stossel!

(Above: Freddie Mercury, minus the gayness and talent)

This tireless Apostle of Free Markets, last seen heroicially defending the rights of price gougers to exploit humanitarian tragedies for monetary gain, has turned his fearsome rhetorical guns on those Jacobin nogoodniks who imperiously lord over the last vestige of medicine not subject to the grandmotherly kindness of the Profit Motive.

Or, to put it another way, those who don’t think that you should be able to sell or buy a kidney are a bunch of fucking Commies:

Why isn’t someone with two healthy organs allowed to put one on the market? Because in 1984, U.S. Rep. Al Gore sponsored a law making the sale of organs punishable by five years in jail. Congress couldn’t contain its enthusiasm; the bill passed 396 to 6.

So giving someone a kidney is a good deed, but selling the same kidney is a felony.

When I confronted Dr. Brian Pereira of the National Kidney Foundation about that, he said, “The current system functions extremely well.” I asked him how the system could be working “extremely well” when 17 people die every day because they can’t get kidneys. He said that the “desperate (situation) doesn’t justify an unwise policy decision.”

The Kidney Foundation fears that poor people would be “exploited.” But what gives the foundation the right to decide for poor people? The poor are as capable as others of deciding what trade-offs to make in life. No one forces them to give up an organ. To say the poor are too desperate to resist a dangerous temptation is patronizing.

But gatekeepers like Dr. Pereira say there should be “no barter, no sale of organs. That’s where we have to step in.” When I asked him who that “we” is that has the right to “step in,” he replied, “The government (and) the professional societies.”

That conceit—that the government and “professional societies” must decide for all of us, and the underlying hostility toward commerce—kills people.

Truer words were never spoken! Why should a bunch of “doctors” have the right to decide, on the purely arbitrary basis of “medical need,” who should have first crack at those sweet, sweet kidneys? And if a rich guy wants to buy his way to the top of the transplant list, who are these bureaucrats to say he can’t? And the little girl who was ahead of him because of her greater “need?” Well, maybe she should have taken greater personal responsibility and not been born poor! Bad choice on her part, but why should the rich have to unduly suffer for it?

And why stop at kidneys, anyway? You only need one eye to see, one lung to breathe, and one ball to procreate, right? You could walk perfectly well with a missing toe or two. And once a guy played Major League Baseball with only one arm. Your kid was run over by a truck? Sure, that’s a bummer, but don’t compound the emotional loss with a monetary one – sell off his undamaged organs to pay the hospital bills! (And maybe a nice new car or vacation getaway. Hey, you’ve suffered enough.)

No doubt, there are many Bleeding Heart Bedwetters who will envision all sort of “slippery slope” scenarios that could stem from the selling of human organs for profit. However, such people are Communists who hate America and Free Enterprise, and should all just move to China.