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Ending Organ Donor Shortages?

Posted by michael on from the death-penalty-for-jaywalking dept.

Tracy2112 writes "An interesting and recurring science fiction theme is the idea of black-market traffic in human body parts -- as Larry Niven termed it, "organlegging". According to this USA Today's Op-Ed piece on Yahoo, we're getting closer . . . including LifeSharers.com, , an organization working to sign up "preferred donors" who agree to preferentially donate to other LifeSharer members. Is this a great way to reward people for being generous with their unused body parts -- or a scary flashback to how early 'subscription-only' fire departments worked?"

2 of 405 comments (clear)

  1. Put donors first by einer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I think it's Hawaii that rewards organ donors with preferred placement on the organ priority list.

  2. Executions... by Cyno01 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If your talking about execution, there are problems with organ donations from death row inmates. In most states lethal injection is the preferred method, the chemicals used in this process however are so powerful that they render all the organs useless, same with gas chambers. Old sparky also destroys organs pretty effectivly. I do remember hearing about one guy who chose the firing squad so his organs (asiddes from the heart and probably a lung then) could be harvested.

    --
    "Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."