Will You Ever Need An Organ Transplant

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Stephanie Hylton English 125 Karen Davies December 5 2011 Will You Ever Need an Organ Transplant? My cousin Jordan Frost died almost 3 months ago at the young age of 24 from a failing liver. He was born with a damaged liver, He was told to never drinking alcohol because it could kill him. He did everything to keep himself as healthy as someone with a damaged liver could be. He had been on the waiting list for a liver since he was born. After waiting 24 years on the waiting list he died a slow and horrible death that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. His skin was bright yellow like he was glowing, and so were his eyes. He was in agonizing pain, and had to go through dialysis to filter his blood. I have seen what the effects of not having enough organs in surplus for the people that actually need them. If we had more organ donors my cousin maybe wouldn’t have had to die so young leaving his wife and first child who is now 4 months old. 90% of the people on the organ waiting list die before receiving the organ they need. Have you ever thought of being an organ donor? What if you needed a kidney, do you think you would get it in time before you died? Most people don’t like to donate their organs while living or after death, so there are very few organs available to the people in need of them. In the essay “Need Transplant Donors? Pay them” Virginia Postrel speaks about how there’s a shortage of kidneys for the people that need them and possible solution to this problem to pay live donors for donations. To increase the supply of deceased donors is quite difficult; donors have to die under the right circumstances. Still if we harvested all of the eligible cadavers, the gap would still not get filled. However things like laws and cultural beliefs discourage healthy people from donating their organs. Paying more for any scarce commodity is one way to increase the surplus.

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