100 word answer needed from the question and artile below.
Question:
Explain whether, and if so how, you would expect laws that prohibit the buying and selling of organs to affect the overall wellbeing of society.
Article: "Should there be a market in organs?"
Some years ago, a Boston newspaper reported the story of Susan Stephens, a woman whose son needed a kidney transplant. When the doctor learned that the mother's kidney was not compatible, he proposed a novel solution: If Stephens donated one of her kidneys to a stranger, her son would move to the top of the kidney waiting list. The mother accepted the deal and soon two patients had the transplant they were waiting for.
The ingenuity of the doctor's proposal and the nobility of the mother's act cannot be doubted. But the story raises many intriguing questions. If the mother could trade a kidney, would the hospital allow her to trade a kidney for an expensive, experimental cancer treatment that she could not afford otherwise? Should she be allowed to exchange her kidney for free tuition for her son at the hospital's mediacal school? Should she be able to sell her kidney so she can use the cash to trade in her old Toyota for a new Lexus?
In many countries, including Australia, it is illegal for a person to sell their organs. In essence, in the market for organs the government has imposed a price ceiling of zero. The result, as with any binding price ceiling, is the shortage of the good. The deal in the Stephens case did not fall under this prohibition because no cash exchanged hands.
Some countries, however, have illicit markets in organs. The World Health Organizations estimates that 10% of all organ transplants, including arount 15 000 kidneys each year, involve a patient from a rich country buying an illegal organ from a citizen of a poorer nation. The temptation to the world's poorest people to sell their 'spare' organs in high. A kidney can sell for around $1500 or more in the illegal trade. This may not sounds like much to you or me. But it can be many years income to a person living in dire poverty.
Some economists believe that there would be large benefits to allowing a free market in organs. People are born with two kidneys but they usually need only one. Meanwhile, a few people suffer from illnesses that leave them wiithout any working kidneys. Despite the obvious gains from trade, the current situation is dire. In Ausralia, the average wait for a kidney transplant is 3.8 years and there are up to 50 deaths a year from people on the waiting list because a kidney cannot be found. In Europe, on average, 12 people die each day waiting for an organ transplant. If those needing a kidney were allowed to buy one from those who have two, the price would rise to balance supply and demand. Sellers would be better off with the extra cash in their pockets. Buyers would be better off with the rgan they need to save their lives. The shortage of kidneys would disappear.
Such a market would lear to an efficient allocation of resources, but critics of this plan worry about fairness. A market for organs, they argue, would benefit the rich at the expense of the oor, because organs would then be allocated to those most willing and able to pay. But you can also question the fairness of the current system.Now, most of us walk around with an etra organ that we don't really need, while some of our fellow citizens are dying to get one. Is that fair?
