**TL;DR: The legalization of organ trade does not resolve the various ethical issues around these transactions.** The legalization of organ trade represents an attempt at privatization where it should not. The ethical concerns of organ trade would not disappear with legalization. Instead, it would give legitimacy to an aggregation of inequality and harm. On the demand side, organ trade associates the value of life with money. Currently, the demand for organ transplants exceeds the supply. However, it seems unclear how privatization would solve the issue. Legitimizing the issue would likely have a marginal impact on the supply of organs. Instead, the scarcity will drive up the prices of organs in this hypothetical market. Considering the often life-saving nature of organ transplants, the high prices would allow wealthy people exclusive access to preserve their life. This situation raises the problem of medical equity, an issue already severe with the high prices of many other medicines. One can advocate for privatization as well as a price ceiling for organ trades. However, price ceiling measures often lead to scarcity, meaning that the legalization would not improve the access to organ transplants. On the supply side, information asymmetry compromises the autonomy of the sellers. While a person can theoretically consent to trade their organs for money, in practice the consent seems compromised. Most organ sellers are [economically vulnerable groups in low-income countries](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/j.1600-6143.2006.01679.x). They likely do to have access to information regarding the [long-term health consequences of these transactions](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2016/01/05/the-market-for-human-organs-is-destroying-lives/). The legalization of the process would encourage selling organs without the necessary information to make a rational decision. For these reasons, organ trades should not become legalized.

Any time you create a new market, you create an industry. Industry expands by any means necessary and is only kept morally in line via regulation There's a reason we don't negotiate with terrorists, for instance. It isn't about some national pride. If a hostile entity can get money or service in exchange for a hostage, it creates a market for taking hostages, and thus more hostages will be taken. Ethically-sourced human organs is a thing. But creating a market for human organs would create a drive to harvest human organs ethically or otherwise.

**The legalisation of an organ market would facilitate the exploitation of underprivileged communities and introduce ethically questionable commercial dynamics to a vital service. The regulations necessary to ensure the market remains ethical will naturally be subject to imperfections in design and enforcement, guaranteeing dangerous consequences that may outweigh the benefits of an increase in transplant availability.** Assuming that the sale of human organs is legalised with the necessary regulations regarding consent, safety, and education, the inadequate enforcement of these regulations is likely to offset any benefits that the market would provide. - The creation and privitisation of an organ market would require the 'products' to be strictly monitored with regards to their source and means of acquisition. To what extent can the regulations ensure that an organ was safely removed from the seller? To what extent can the regulations ensure that the seller is educated enough to make an informed decision regarding the sale of their kidney, lung, or portion of liver? - Organisations and corporations will intend to profit on the sale of organs. While the medical industry is not wholly non-profit, allowing organs to become economic commodities would invite the implications of supply-demand dynamics, and the ability of an individual to source an organ will become contingent on their monetary status. The current system through which organs are supplied operates on the basis of need, location, and compatibility - according to the American Transplant Association. While the legalisation of organ sale may not necessarily the eclipse present means of sourcing transplants, the offer of a monetary reward as opposed to pro-bono donation is likely to absorb donors in the commercial realm. - Will organs be sold based on a database of need that each organisation obtains from its associated hospitals? Or will organs be 'farmed' - i.e., collected and stored - regardless of demonstrated need? Though there are thousands (even hundreds of thousands) of individuals on transplant waitlists at any given time in any country, will the legalisation of organ sale introduce a surplus? Donated lungs cannot last longer than 8 hours post-donation, while kidneys can be preserved for up to 24-36 hours. These numbers, in turn, can vary depending on the donor. This in itself can be presented as an inherent regulatory characteristic of the market; however, it is entirely possible that organs be 'restocked' to ensure the immediacy of 'customer service' if an organ is requested. Interestingly, while blood donations are completely pro-bono, you can donate plasma to a plasma bank for a monetary reward. However, this has resulted in reports of individuals with diseases and health conditions omitting this information when signing up (e.g. HIV), and health officials are concerned that offering money will similarly invite desperate individuals to provide unviable blood. [https://www.statnews.com/2016/01/22/paid-plasma-not-blood/] This is another clear reason why legalising organ sales would merely introduce innumerous and unfeasible regulatory demands.

**Using Iran as a case study demonstrates both positive and negative impacts of organ market legalisation.** There are several significant pros for a legal organ market that are frequently disregarded by other countries. However, there are also serious moral and practical issues which must also be acknowledged and addressed for such a system to function • There is a global shortage of organs, causing lengthy and life-threatening waiting times on organ transplants. As a result of this, regardless of the legalisation of the sale of human organs, the trade will still occur on the black market which carries its own risks. • In an attempt to address this, in 1988 Iran introduced a government-run payment scheme for living non-related donation (LNRD), becoming the first country to legalise the regulated sale and purchase of kidneys. Pros: • In Iran it has been an [extremely successful](https://www.centreforpublicimpact.org/case-study/organ-donations-in-iran/) in encouraging individuals to donate their organs, completely eliminating waiting times for kidney transplants by 1999. Reports show the number of kidney transplants per year increased from less than 100 in 1986 to 26,259 in 2006, saving thousands of lives. Iran now stands at 3rd in the world for kidney transplantation. • It discourages the criminal activity and dangerous practices of the black market. • Desperate individuals are not forced into crime and [put their life at risk](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-36083800) • Donors are allowed to receive payment for their own body • It is our right to use our bodies as we wish • Shortens waiting times for transplants–reduces recipient’s suffering (physical and mental) and alleviates strain on hospitals and government resources Cons: • The [World Health Organisation](https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/85/12/06-039370/en/) deems organ trade unethical: “The allocation of organs, cells and tissues should be guided by clinical criteria and ethical norms, not financial or other considerations … cells, tissues and organs should only be donated freely, without any monetary payment or other reward of monetary value” . This is because they argue marketization [corrupts](https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/42886/9241591390.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y&ua=1 ) the moral value of organ donation. • Third parties profit from organ trade • Decline in health of donor • [Coercion](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2563357/#!po=3.12500 ) and exploitation still occurs • [Increased inequality](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2563357/#!po=3.12500 ) e.g. wealth divide-The rich get healthy and poor get sick • Unfair priority to wealthy people needing transplant • Black markets [still operate](https://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/irans-legal-market-in-kidneys-creates-a-black-market-too/12478) in Iran

There is nothing unethical about the sale of human organs, what is wrong is the way that organs are currently sold. They are sold while attached to crime and criminal activity. Selling an organ is a choice someone may make for financial gain. Most of us reading this opinion I am writing, live in capitalist societies. Many people reading this (and certainly many people i have spoken too face to face) do not enjoy their job. Some hate their job but have decided for financial gain to do a job, they don't like, to get and maintain, a standard of living they desire. They have decided to exchange some form of discomfort or suffering (while performing their job) for financial gain. It is an unpleasant transaction, doing something for money that we would choose not to do if there was no financial consequences, but this unpleasant transaction is something almost all of us, are all familiar with, either by personal experience or via the experiences of people we know. By selling a kidney or other organ, someone assesses what may come from the loss and also the gain and then makes a choice. Let me put a proposition to you. What if the price for selling a kidney were say: Ten Million british pounds? (it is nothing like that in real life). Well would you be willing to sell a kidney? The consequences of selling a kidney, might include things like giving up alcohol, increased high blood pressure (and all the illnesses that might bring on) against the benefits of quitting your job, a life of leisure, living off your investments, a new house (perhaps with swimming pool and jacuzzi). Which would you choose? It is possible to have a long and healthy life with one kidney and a life of leisure is a very attractive proposition. This is proposition that many people would at least spend a few seconds thinking about. The proposition is: giving up something that has a negative effect on your life for something that has a positive effect on your life. This is what happens every day in a capitalist society. Even if that means spending time, doing something you don't like, in exchange for money to do or get something, you do want. For instance the money to pay your bills in exchange for working at a factory, where the work is hard and cruelling. The problem with the proposition I have posed in the present day, is that selling a kidney would bring you about probably under £10, 000 and the black market gang would sell it on for a huge profit of over £100,000 This, most people would agree, is not worth it and only the desperate would take it. By removing organ sales illegality and make it ilegal, this would allow it to be an everyday part of capitalism. So I have put mixed, because I do not think organ sales, should be allowed until the association with criminality has been taken away and also, that each person selling, should be given access to a councillor of some sort to assess mental health and the financial soundness of their decisions, as well as making sure they have not been co-erced or threatened to sell. So financially there might be avenues the seller has not considered, so a second opinion would be good.