The Black Market in Human Organs

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Ever wonder why it's perfectly legal and moral to sell so-called soft tissues like blood and semen in the United States, but illegal and amoral to sell fetal tissue, bone marrow, corneas or solid organs outright for transplant? How would you feel about selling you liver to pay for your son’s or daughter’s college tuition? Or one of you kidneys to renovate your kitchen? When most people are thinking about getting a loan from the bank, state grants or even a second job to pay for those type of financial projects, many poor families are desperate enough to do such an unspeakable act and more so often equally tempted. Even though buying and selling organs is illegal in most countries, there is a thriving black market worldwide. Crazy though it seems, organ selling has become the way-to-get-ahead for some people. In poorer nations such as the Philippines, Togo and Bangladesh there is a large market in human organs. It is also an underground trend in the US, Australia and France. A 2004, article written by Brian Handwerk on NationalGeographic.com he states, “In 2002 U.S. doctors performed 24,900 lifesaving organ transplants. That's the good news. But for every person lucky enough to receive a transplant, two others are added to a waiting list that now features more than 80,000 people in the U.S. alone. As desperation grows so may an illicit trade in human organs in much of the developing world.” To show us how many people in the U.S. alone need these types of organ transplants, and that it is a very long difficult process go through and find an exact matching donor. Since the demand is very high many have attempted to profit by selling organs such as kidneys, obtained from living donors tempted to give up their "spare" organs for cash. For instants in 2003 police in South Africa and in Brazil broke up an international ring trafficking in human kidneys. In the same

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