Flying_Pie
Nov 23, 2010
Writing Feedback / Filling the Gap: Legalizing Organ Trade (Persuasive Essay) [2]
Hey everyone, I'd appreciate some feedback on my paper.
Things I'm wondering:
Are there any parts I could reasonably cut out? As it stands, it's a bit too long.
Have I worded things well enough to be understood?
Is my logic easily followed?
Is the essay organized well and do I make a convincing argument?
Grammar questions:
Is it okay to write forty-four thousand as 44,000 in this type of essay?
Should I get rid of contractions in persuasive essays?
Thanks a ton everyone.
Filling The Gap: Legalizing Organ Trade
Devon is sitting somberly in his fourth grade class, waiting for the bell to ring. Unlike most of his classmates, he isn't too excited that school is almost over; instead, he's actually dreading it. Three days a week, including today, Devon must go to the nephrology center at his local hospital, where he spends four hours hooked to a machine that filters toxins from his blood. Sadly, like nearly 100,000 other Americans, Devon suffers from chronic renal failure and awaits a new kidney, one which may never come.
Organ transplantation has become incredibly successful in recent years, and, as a result, so has the demand for healthy organs. In fact, the demand has risen so much that it has exhausted the supply. In 2008, nearly 140,000 Americans found themselves waiting for transplants. Only about 20,000 received them that year while over 7,000 people died when new organs would have saved them. These distressing numbers beg for a solution, and several experts have stepped up to the plate to propose theirs. One of the most hotly debated of these proposals is to offer to buy organs from potential donors, but this, too, poses its own problems. The National Organ Transplant Act of 1984 prohibits any sale of human organs for the purpose of transplantation, citing issues of economics and ethical responsibility. But after considering the thousands of humans lives at stake, it's evident that legalizing organ trade is the right thing to do.
While the debate of allowing organ sales is primarily philosophical, let us first consider an economic perspective. You learned in your high school economics class about supply and demand: for a given price, supply is the amount of a commodity available on the market, and demand is the amount of the commodity desired by the consumers. In an open market, supply and demand eventually meet at a certain price, called the market equilibrium. There are times, however, when this doesn't happen: take, for instance, a price ceiling. B. Taylor of FundamentalFinance.com explains that a price ceiling is a government-mandated maximum price at which a commodity is to be sold. For a price ceiling to be effective, it must lie below the market equilibrium. When this happens, the lower price encourages buyers to purchase the commodity, leading to a higher demand. In the meantime, the increased demand does not make up for the revenue lost by lowering prices, hence the supply goes down. So, what does a high demand mixed with a low supply lead to? You got it: a shortage.
Now you're probably asking yourself what this has to due with organ trade. Recall that the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984 prohibits "any person to knowingly acquire, receive, or otherwise transfer any human organ for valuable consideration for use in human transplantation." From an economic standpoint, this is essentially a price ceiling: one may "sell" their organs for a price of zero dollars, but no higher. Taking a purely entrepreneurial perspective, would you ever consider entering a market in which there's zero potential for a return?
There is one country in the world that runs a successful organ vending system. Iran faced a similar crisis as we did late last century, with a kidney waiting list numbering in the thousands. A 2008 study summed up perfectly the system's impact: "In Iran, the waiting list for kidneys was eliminated in 1999, 11 years after the legalization of organ vending, and for the past 8 years, Iran has had no waiting list for kidneys."
Unfortunately, resolving this issue isn't as easy as reviewing some economic theory. As I mentioned earlier, most arguments opposed to legalizing the organ trade are grounded in philosophy, and one of the most prominent of these regards the ethicality of commoditizing the human body. Many people argue that we essentially own our bodies and should therefore be able to do what we want with them, but not everyone agrees. Austin Cline, a guide to atheism and agnosticism on About.com, argues that ownership of one's body is unique: for example, we are unable to transfer ownership of our bodies, it is illegal to sell ourselves into slavery, and there are even laws dictating how we may sell our labor. Given this, would it not be hypocritical to allow organ trade to occur?
One thing this argument fails to acknowledge is that we have been legally selling body parts for decades. People looking to earn an extra buck may go to places like BioLife Services and sell their plasma (a part of their blood), which is then made into products that treat medical problems in other people. The going price for a human cadaver for medical experiments is about five thousand dollars, and men and women can easily go to a clinic to sell their sperm and eggs, respectively, with some women earning up to fifteen thousand dollars per year! Every one of these services are performed on voluntary venders, and they benefit millions of others around the country. It is hard to contend that these procedures, which essentially turn human body parts into commodities, are fundamentally immoral given their positive outcomes; and to argue that organ vending would have dissimilar consequences carries little weight.
Another potential issue is widespread availability. Healthcare is already extremely expensive, and many people dislike the idea of allowing organ vending because not everyone would be able to afford it. At first, this sounds logical: we live in a capitalistic society and healthcare is a profit-oriented industry, so there seems to be a good chance that opening an organ market would drive prices up. But according to a study by the University of Maryland, the two-year price for a kidney transplant, including surgery and post-operational costs, adds up to $106,000. In contrast, dialysis, which is essential to patients waiting for kidney transplants, costs $44,000 every year. Beyond two-and-a-half years, they concluded, transplantation becomes incredibly less costly than dialysis. Let us consider that Iran's kidney vending market provides most venders between three thousand and five thousand dollars for their organs, so if we assume a running price of ten thousand dollars for a kidney in the United States, then transplant prices will not even rise by ten percent. Now, given such a small impact on the price, the fact that victims of renal failure must stay on dialysis until they receive a new kidney, and that an organ vending system would likely increase the supply substantially (therefore reducing the wait time to receive a new organ), it becomes evident that an organ vending system would impact prices very little. In fact, it may even reduce patient costs in the long run, making transplants accessible to more people and saving more lives.
It is apparent that we face some serious ethical issues in legalizing organ trade, but it's hard to argue that they outweigh such a staggering loss of life: seven thousand husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers die every year waiting for organs that would otherwise save them. Some argue that we would hurt many more people by allowing organ trade because it would take advantage of so many, but in an organized, western country like the United States, it's not out of mind's reach to believe that we could control such a market. With the implementation of strict rules and practices, we could safely and ethically cut the looming shortage to shreds. But as it stands today, by not allowing the organ trade to commence, we are not doing everything we possibly can to fill the gap between the number of needed organs and the number that are actually available, and we're denying so many people their chance to live.
Hey everyone, I'd appreciate some feedback on my paper.
Things I'm wondering:
Are there any parts I could reasonably cut out? As it stands, it's a bit too long.
Have I worded things well enough to be understood?
Is my logic easily followed?
Is the essay organized well and do I make a convincing argument?
Grammar questions:
Is it okay to write forty-four thousand as 44,000 in this type of essay?
Should I get rid of contractions in persuasive essays?
Thanks a ton everyone.
Filling The Gap: Legalizing Organ Trade
Devon is sitting somberly in his fourth grade class, waiting for the bell to ring. Unlike most of his classmates, he isn't too excited that school is almost over; instead, he's actually dreading it. Three days a week, including today, Devon must go to the nephrology center at his local hospital, where he spends four hours hooked to a machine that filters toxins from his blood. Sadly, like nearly 100,000 other Americans, Devon suffers from chronic renal failure and awaits a new kidney, one which may never come.
Organ transplantation has become incredibly successful in recent years, and, as a result, so has the demand for healthy organs. In fact, the demand has risen so much that it has exhausted the supply. In 2008, nearly 140,000 Americans found themselves waiting for transplants. Only about 20,000 received them that year while over 7,000 people died when new organs would have saved them. These distressing numbers beg for a solution, and several experts have stepped up to the plate to propose theirs. One of the most hotly debated of these proposals is to offer to buy organs from potential donors, but this, too, poses its own problems. The National Organ Transplant Act of 1984 prohibits any sale of human organs for the purpose of transplantation, citing issues of economics and ethical responsibility. But after considering the thousands of humans lives at stake, it's evident that legalizing organ trade is the right thing to do.
While the debate of allowing organ sales is primarily philosophical, let us first consider an economic perspective. You learned in your high school economics class about supply and demand: for a given price, supply is the amount of a commodity available on the market, and demand is the amount of the commodity desired by the consumers. In an open market, supply and demand eventually meet at a certain price, called the market equilibrium. There are times, however, when this doesn't happen: take, for instance, a price ceiling. B. Taylor of FundamentalFinance.com explains that a price ceiling is a government-mandated maximum price at which a commodity is to be sold. For a price ceiling to be effective, it must lie below the market equilibrium. When this happens, the lower price encourages buyers to purchase the commodity, leading to a higher demand. In the meantime, the increased demand does not make up for the revenue lost by lowering prices, hence the supply goes down. So, what does a high demand mixed with a low supply lead to? You got it: a shortage.
Now you're probably asking yourself what this has to due with organ trade. Recall that the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984 prohibits "any person to knowingly acquire, receive, or otherwise transfer any human organ for valuable consideration for use in human transplantation." From an economic standpoint, this is essentially a price ceiling: one may "sell" their organs for a price of zero dollars, but no higher. Taking a purely entrepreneurial perspective, would you ever consider entering a market in which there's zero potential for a return?
There is one country in the world that runs a successful organ vending system. Iran faced a similar crisis as we did late last century, with a kidney waiting list numbering in the thousands. A 2008 study summed up perfectly the system's impact: "In Iran, the waiting list for kidneys was eliminated in 1999, 11 years after the legalization of organ vending, and for the past 8 years, Iran has had no waiting list for kidneys."
Unfortunately, resolving this issue isn't as easy as reviewing some economic theory. As I mentioned earlier, most arguments opposed to legalizing the organ trade are grounded in philosophy, and one of the most prominent of these regards the ethicality of commoditizing the human body. Many people argue that we essentially own our bodies and should therefore be able to do what we want with them, but not everyone agrees. Austin Cline, a guide to atheism and agnosticism on About.com, argues that ownership of one's body is unique: for example, we are unable to transfer ownership of our bodies, it is illegal to sell ourselves into slavery, and there are even laws dictating how we may sell our labor. Given this, would it not be hypocritical to allow organ trade to occur?
One thing this argument fails to acknowledge is that we have been legally selling body parts for decades. People looking to earn an extra buck may go to places like BioLife Services and sell their plasma (a part of their blood), which is then made into products that treat medical problems in other people. The going price for a human cadaver for medical experiments is about five thousand dollars, and men and women can easily go to a clinic to sell their sperm and eggs, respectively, with some women earning up to fifteen thousand dollars per year! Every one of these services are performed on voluntary venders, and they benefit millions of others around the country. It is hard to contend that these procedures, which essentially turn human body parts into commodities, are fundamentally immoral given their positive outcomes; and to argue that organ vending would have dissimilar consequences carries little weight.
Another potential issue is widespread availability. Healthcare is already extremely expensive, and many people dislike the idea of allowing organ vending because not everyone would be able to afford it. At first, this sounds logical: we live in a capitalistic society and healthcare is a profit-oriented industry, so there seems to be a good chance that opening an organ market would drive prices up. But according to a study by the University of Maryland, the two-year price for a kidney transplant, including surgery and post-operational costs, adds up to $106,000. In contrast, dialysis, which is essential to patients waiting for kidney transplants, costs $44,000 every year. Beyond two-and-a-half years, they concluded, transplantation becomes incredibly less costly than dialysis. Let us consider that Iran's kidney vending market provides most venders between three thousand and five thousand dollars for their organs, so if we assume a running price of ten thousand dollars for a kidney in the United States, then transplant prices will not even rise by ten percent. Now, given such a small impact on the price, the fact that victims of renal failure must stay on dialysis until they receive a new kidney, and that an organ vending system would likely increase the supply substantially (therefore reducing the wait time to receive a new organ), it becomes evident that an organ vending system would impact prices very little. In fact, it may even reduce patient costs in the long run, making transplants accessible to more people and saving more lives.
It is apparent that we face some serious ethical issues in legalizing organ trade, but it's hard to argue that they outweigh such a staggering loss of life: seven thousand husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers die every year waiting for organs that would otherwise save them. Some argue that we would hurt many more people by allowing organ trade because it would take advantage of so many, but in an organized, western country like the United States, it's not out of mind's reach to believe that we could control such a market. With the implementation of strict rules and practices, we could safely and ethically cut the looming shortage to shreds. But as it stands today, by not allowing the organ trade to commence, we are not doing everything we possibly can to fill the gap between the number of needed organs and the number that are actually available, and we're denying so many people their chance to live.